


The Stargate Program

by Ashynarr



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Stargate SG-1
Genre: (Adding OCs and other characters as I feature them), (All 2p and Nyo characters are to be assumed human unless stated otherwise), Also some theorizing on how stuff works, Gen, Some adjustments to canon Stargate timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 63,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashynarr/pseuds/Ashynarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the discovery of the century. A device older than human civilization, capable of transporting people across the galaxy in an instant. But things have a way of quickly becoming complicated, pushing America and others to their limits as they find themselves embroiled in galactic politics and intrigue throughout the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot Arc: The Giza Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ring's discovery, reburial, and recovery through the eyes of America.

[January 1981]

The first time Alfred encountered the stone ring, it was the height of 1928, and his country was prospering. He'd chosen to take a break from government work to come over to Egypt, wanting to indulge his adventuring urges and stretch his legs a bit. His boss, President Coolidge, allowed him the indulgence as there were few issues to deal with on the home front that could not be handled without him.

The desert was hot, but nothing he wasn't used to with his own southwestern expanse, so he spent time with Gupta while watching over and oftentimes working with the excavators who were digging through the sands looking for ancient relics. When asked how he felt about it, considering they were his mother's legacy, the Egyptian man simply shrugged and stated that at least she was being remembered. Alfred had the lingering sense he wasn't being completely honest, but really, what was his concern if the older man didn't want to part with a few old relics?

This dig in particular hadn't seemed too different from the others at first. A few relics, just enough to entice interest, were dug up early on, then teams assigned to the area with the usual set up. It was a bit odd that this dig was somewhat deeper than the others, but it hardly seemed something to think too long on when there were artifacts to focus on. Alfred, mindful of his strength, handled anything found with the utmost caution, and never for too long. It was a shame really, but he'd rather be able to enjoy them in his museums later than destroy them now through carelessness.

In fact, when the ring was first uncovered, he wasn't even at that dig, instead at another nearby one that had also seen some good progress. When the news made it to his ears, he quickly drove back to see it for himself. Gupta was already there waiting, staring at the ring being held upright with ropes with a distant expression.

"Do you know what that is?" Alfred asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the flawless circle with its intricate designs pulled up from underneath the coverstones. Something in the back of his mind told him this wasn't like the other artifacts being uncovered; it was something truly important, perhaps even life-changing.

Gupta hesitated. "Only from stories. My mother told me once, when she was young, of her own mother kidnapped by the gods, and her people's eventual rebellion against them. She said that the portal was buried, so that they could never return."

Alfred scoffed, but at the same time looked interested. "And this is supposed to be that portal?"

The Egyptian man frowned. "It is only a story." His gaze turned from the American back to the ring. "...still, I would advise caution. I don't believe that ring is anything my mother's people made."

From their position on the cliff, neither of them could see what lay beneath the ring's inner circle.

The stone ring, along with the other artifacts of the dig and of several others, would soon be on a ship back to America, with Alfred returning as well. He'd been feeling off lately, and although he was content to wave it off as a bit of heat stroke at first, the continuing restlessness did not bode well with him. His return coincided with the crash of the stock market and the beginnings of the Great Depression, effectively putting all thoughts of the strange ring out of his mind.

His next encounter with it would only be in passing. The year was 1945 now, and he was going through paperwork like a madman, approving supply and troop movements within the country. Many of the documents he was going through were highly classified, but being who he was he had no issues with clearance or censoring.

He glanced through the page, not seeing much of real interest, other than mention of researching a ring that could potentially be used as a weapon. It brought vague memories of hot desert sands, but he shook it off, signing the sheet granting the program a few million before moving on to the next set of papers. It was hardly a large expenditure by any means, considering how many millions were being siphoned into the Manhattan project, and another weapon would be useful against both the Axis and the Soviets should it be needed.

As it was, the war with the former was winding down, so unless the Germans or Japanese managed to pull out a last minute miracle it probably wouldn't be needed against either of them. No, if it were to be used, it'd be against the Soviets. Speaking of which, he needed to go over his spy reports of the going ons over there soon.

In a few minutes any thoughts of the ring or its familiarity were out of his mind, the war effort too important to allow any dwelling.

(There was a moment, briefly, where he thought he felt one of the millions of threads connecting him to his people suddenly vanish, but not in death. More like… distance, maybe?

The oddity barely lingered in his mind between his soldiers getting killed in the Pacific Theater and his own conflicts with Kiku.)

The third time he'd encounter it, it was 1981, and his new boss had called him in to discuss some old projects. Alfred liked President Reagan so far, but then again he usually liked his new bosses.

After discussing several other projects and getting the President up to date on them, Reagan pulled out another, smaller folder and pushed it forward. "I found this with some of the other abandoned Cold War projects, and was hoping you could tell me more about it."

Well, there were plenty of those, so Alfred thought little of flipping it open. There wasn't much, just a few sheets with data and statistics, and three pictures, one of which took him a minute to recognize as the old Giza ring. The other two, though, he didn't remember except in passing, having barely glanced at the things found within the ring during his time in Egypt.

One was a round tablet with hieroglyphs on it, the most prominent the six in the central frame. He couldn't recognize the glyphs off the top of his head, though, which was odd because he'd recently refreshed his knowledge of the language along with several others when he'd had a free semester.

The other was what appeared to be the fossilized remains of a humanoid with a birdlike head, which made him think of Ra considering the other tablet. A half-remembered warning from someone an ocean away echoed in his head, and he suppressed a shiver.

"Alfred?"

Alfred looked up at his boss, blinking before realizing he had yet to answer. "Sorry, boss. I really don't know much about this program; when it was active I was sort of busy with a lot of other projects, and I just never thought to look into it."

The president frowned. "It's your signature on the document funding it, though. Didn't you at least check to see what it was researching?"

Alfred wilted a bit, scratching at his neck. "It said something about weapons research… it was pretty cheap really, so it seemed like a good deal if anything came out of it…"

After a moment of searching, Reagan reclaimed the papers, flipping to one in particular. "Well, consider this a chance to make up now. I got a request from a Dr Catherine Langford to start research on it again, which is how I found this project even existed."

Now where had he heard that name before? A moment's focus brought the image of an older woman, whom after a bit he realized was the aged child of the head of the archaeology team that had dug up the ring in the first place. No wonder she knew about the ring, then.

"Why all the sudden interest in this old stone ring though? I mean, the first Giza Project had to be shut down for a reason, right?" Alfred wondered out loud, going through the papers slowly to make sure he didn't miss anything.

Reagan sat back. "According to those surviving documents, the people working on the project were able to get massive energy feedback when they applied electricity to it, along with opening some sort of coded lock. Speculation states that inputting the right code will make it fully activate."

Alfred nodded, reading the same thing on the papers. He glanced back to the pictures again, wondering why the central hieroglyphs on the circular tablet seemed so familiar, before setting the pages down and looking back at his boss.

"When do you want me to speak with her?"

"This weekend, preferably. Tell her her request for funds for the project is approved as well." There was a brief pause. "I don't want this next part to go on record, but I have a feeling that there's more to the original project than they mention here. If you can, see if you can find where the rest of the documents went."

Alfred frowned. "Do you want me to get the CIA involved?"

Reagan shook his head. "No, I'd prefer we keep this quiet for now. I don't want anyone to start asking questions we aren't prepared to answer yet, especially the Soviets."

Damn, his boss was serious about this. Then again, Alfred wasn't too fond of the idea of something big being hidden even from unofficial records. He shut the folder, one hand resting on it while he wondered just what had happened back in the forties that required all but the scantest of details to be hidden away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frustrating thing number one about the Stargate timeline: THERE IS NO SET TIMELINE! (or that's how it feels anyways.)
> 
> No, seriously, try looking up the timeline for the first Stargate movie and you will literally get seven different answers. I'm just going with the one I think makes the most sense overall, at least in this AU. Which means it's probably miles off of whatever official canon lurks out there in cyberspace, but whatever.
> 
> But anyways I do already have a few chapters of this written (as a way to make sure I know what direction I'm going with this), and let's just say it's going to be radically different from what I'd initially planned for. Damn my need for accuracy and sense in a story! Never the less the main characters of Stargate will make their appearances as needed, and other plot events will happen in varied order.
> 
> (Alfred's existence really just sort of... breaks the old timeline. A lot. Whoops! Oh well.)
> 
> (Also, how do write the President? Ahaha... not gonna pretend I know the answer to that.)


	2. Pilot Arc: Project Rebooted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More time passes as the Giza Project gets up and running again, and some familiar faces are introduced.

[February 1981]

Catherine Langford, daughter of the esteemed archaeologist Paul Langford and a well-respected mind in the same field herself, was considered by many to be rather level-headed and stern. Those who worked with her long enough to get to know her also considered her kindly, if a bit distant.

Despite her age, she was active within the archaeological circles, going out to sites across the world to look over various digs as well as visiting what lectures on new discoveries she could manage. It was quietly considered an honor to have her stop by, and even more so for her to speak with you.

On this particular Saturday, however, she was in fact at home, sitting by the window with a cup of coffee while looking out into the backyard of her modest home in New York State. There was a slight frown on her face as she took another sip of her drink, focused more on her thoughts than the outside world.

After the accident that had claimed her fiance's life, she'd tried to move on with her own life, putting all thoughts of the Giza project out of her mind. However, life had apparently not been content with that, bringing reminder after reminder before her until she couldn't take it anymore and began petitioning for the military to resume funding research on it.

The first few presidents had written it off as a joke, seeing as she had her father's only surviving papers from then in her possession, which she was understandably reluctant to part with lest they be claimed and hidden away by the government. She was honestly beginning to believe that she would never see the ring again within her lifetime, seeing as the latest president hadn't even bothered to send a refusal form this time around.

She sighed, feeling her age more than ever. Even after all these years, she still missed her fiance, who had believed in the project so much and paid the ultimate price for it. A hand came up from the cup to take hold of the old amulet she always wore, fingers closing around it carefully.

_Would you be proud of me, Ernest, if you knew what I was doing now? Would you be glad to see your life's work finished after all these years? Or would you think me an old fool for chasing after an old dream?_

Lost in these questions, she didn't hear the knock on the door, only to be startled when the doorbell chimed for her attention. She set her drink down on the table and tucked the amulet back into her shirt, wondering who was stopping by this early in the morning.

Needless to say, Catherine was surprised when she opened the door to a rather young man in a suit with a worn bomber jacket over it. He grinned cheerfully, offering a hand. "Hey there. Dr. Langford, right?"

She took it without thinking, trying to place why he seemed so familiar despite knowing she'd never seen him before. "Yes, that's me…"

"Great! Ah, can I come in? I've got some stuff I need to talk to you about, and it'll probably take a while…"

"Oh, of course, excuse my manners-" Catherine opened the door the rest of the way, not realizing until after he was inside and admiring one of the displays in the hallway that she had just let a complete stranger in without even knowing his name. "Who are you?"

The man turned back to her, blinking, before chuckling. "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. I'm Alfred F. Jones, one of the president's assistants. I'm here to talk to you about a project you recently petitioned us about."

Ah, so that's what this was about. She returned to her seat, picking up her cup and settling down without looking at him. "Has he written me off as an eccentric as well? I'm sorry he had to send you in person just to tell me that."

Alfred shook his head. "Actually, I'm here to tell you that your request was approved, and that you'll have all the funding and resources you need to reactivate the Giza project."

Catherine stopped, turning back to look at him, searching for any hint of a joke in his face. When she couldn't find it, she suddenly found relief in the fact that she was already sitting and thus unable to embarrass herself. "Oh."

"You'll be working with the Air Force mostly, but you'll be able to hire outside people as needed as long as they're willing to sign secrecy papers. Is there anything else you think we'll need?"

"A computer." She responded, finally returning to the present. "Also, I'm going to need whatever papers you can get from the original project, along with retrieving the cover stones and fossil that were found with the gate-"

"We're looking into the second one, but the latter is already in progress as of… yesterday? Yeah, yesterday." Alfred paused. "How do you feel about Colorado?"

"Colorado?" She asked. "I've heard it's a decent place… why?"

"Well, you see…"

~0~0~

[June 1990]

"Alfred, what's all this about?"

Alfred looked up from his papers to see his brother, Matthew, looking rather put out.

"What's all what about?"

"This!" Matthew huffed, throwing down the sheaf of papers that Alfred recognized as the requisition form for two more supercomputers to be built in the lowest three levels of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, which happened to be where the most recently commissioned military supercomputer had already been installed.

It also happened to be a NORAD base, which was probably why Matthew had even learned of the US Air Force suddenly siphoning extra funds and resources into it with little explanation.

"Look, it's no big deal; we just need the extra processing power for a few things."

"That isn't the issue! Well, it is, partially, but that's not the main issue. If you had a good reason for it I could understand, but some classified project that has an unknown completion date rings a lot of warning bells."

Alfred sighed. "I know, Matt, and I wish I could give you the reason, but this is seriously classified right now for basically everyone but the people involved."

"Classified enough that you can't even tell me about it?"

"Classified enough that I can't tell my own intelligence agencies about it."

There was a long moment of silence, Matthew's annoyance fading away as he mentally rolled those words over in his mind.

"...Alfred, promise me this isn't anything like your other highly classified projects."

Alfred smiled. "I promise it's nothing like those. Look, I'll talk to my boss and see what I can do about the classified thing, but I probably won't be able to tell you anything for a few years."

Matthew sighed. "Fine, I'll wait, but there had better be a really good explanation."

"It'll blow your mind. Figuratively speaking."

"Sir? You said you wanted to see me?" Both men turned to the doorway, where a woman had just stepped in, stopping upon seeing Matthew. "Oh, are you in a meeting right now? I can just wait outside-"

"It's fine, we were just finishing." Matthew replied kindly. He glanced back to his brother, muttering a "we'll talk later" to him before nodding politely to the newcomer and leaving.

Alfred sighed, rubbing his forehead while gesturing for her to sit. "Sorry about that, he sort of dropped in unexpectedly. I called you in for..."

"You said you were reassigning me to a new project, sir."

"Ah, right, right. I've heard a lot of good things about you, Captain Carter. One of the best and brightest in the Air Force, and not just because of the PhD in astrophysics." Alfred smiled, settling back into his chair.

Samantha, to her credit, only blushed lightly at the praise. "Thank you, sir."

"Right, well, the reason I called you in today… tell me, have you ever heard of a Dr. Catherine Langford?"

She frowned, trying to place the name. "Isn't she an archaeologist? Sir."

Alfred waved it off. "Yes, she is, and she's in charge of the civilian half of the new project you're going to be joining."

"Sir?"

Alfred pulled out the folder with the documents from the new Giza project, including the pictures of the objects now residing in their Colorado home. "This is the Giza ring. We don't know what it does, only that the Ancient Egyptians called it the 'Doorway to Heaven', that it's made out of materials not found on Earth, and that it's older than human civilization."

Her mouth formed a small o as she read through the scant details available. Eventually she looked back up, her posture determined. "What do you need me to do first, sir?"

Alfred smiled. His soldiers never failed to make him proud when the moment called for it. "Get the new supercomputers being designed to work with this thing hooked up and programmed so that we can activate it and see what it does. The president himself promised as many resources as he can offer without raising any flags in the rest of the government circles to get that done."

"Understood, sir. When am I leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning. Make sure you report to Dr. Langford once you get there and let her know you're in charge of the computer programming. You're dismissed; go pack and be ready."

"Understood, sir." She paused. "And… thank you, I guess."

Alfred laughed. "Don't thank me yet, Captain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 'official canon' has Samantha Carter working alongside Catherine Langford to work on the gate and the supercomputer programed to dial it. That made it really easy to bring her into the story, and she'll have her times to shine in the future (hopefully). She's still fairly young in this chapter (about her canon age in the original material I think?), but that's not an important detail.
> 
> Also, the time in which Catherine got the government to finally agree to reopening the project varies wildly, which is one of the reasons I just threw up my hands, said 'fuck it all', and did my own thing. If it's wrong, so be it, this is an AU anyways because, well, crossover.
> 
> You may remember that in the original draft, I had Matthew involved from the start too (because of NORAD and such), but after research I realized that Canada actually was never involved in the program until Atlantis and the world wide revealing of the program. This is my nod to that, and also my reasoning for why the US Air Force would choose such a place if they were going for secrecy. It's hard to dismantle and move a half-built supercomputer, after all!
> 
> (Not to worry though, the other countries will be brought in! ...eventually. We'll see.)
> 
> (I hope I have the characters in character so far. I really do need to sit down and watch the episodes again before I get into the main plot stuff.)


	3. Pilot Arc: Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred checks in on the new Giza project, and some important discoveries are made.

[March 1993]

It was nearly three years later when Alfred finally found the opportunity to check in on the Giza Project, and not just because of a pileup of meetings and paperwork and reorganization. Between him being bedridden from frostbite due to the unfortunate timing of the nastiest blizzard he could remember and the increasingly heavy flooding in the midwest that had him coughing up water at unfortunate moments, he was honestly surprised he wasn't being restricted to his house for the rest of the year.

Then again, he had sort of begged and pleaded with his boss to be able get out and at least do  _something_ , because really it wasn't like he was completely invalid, and it was boring being cooped up in the house with the warming weather; the man had only conceded once he promised to not do anything too strenuous.

The idea would have made him laugh if it weren't for the fact that he'd have probably ended up hacking up some water and thus invalidating all of his efforts up to then.

But he'd figured, since it wasn't too hard to just look around and check in on things and chat with people, that heading out west to Colorado was a good way to stretch his legs a bit. Even though he'd made no progress on the missing paperwork front, he could also at least tell Catherine honestly that he was still looking into it.

He wasn't in his military uniform, as he wasn't there on official business, so it took a moment to prove he had the clearance to get in, but once he did he was escorted to the elevator down to the lower levels. Only when they arrived on the floor did the escort leave, heading back up to their original posts and allowing Alfred to make his way to the computer room. As he'd hoped, Samantha was already there, running diagnostics on the computer with several others.

"Everything running alright?"

She turned to look at him, offering a friendly smile before turning back. "We're just about to run the first tests to make sure the computer and ring are synchronized correctly, sir."

"Sweet, hope you don't mind if I say and watch then."

"Not at all, sir." She gave several commands to the others in the room, then turned back to her own screen. "Start it on my mark….. and go."

There was a brief stream of smoke as the generators activated, blowing the cloud of nitrogen away from the ring, followed by a grinding sound of stone against stone. The seven triangles near the top all slid away from the ring they were on, but otherwise the ring did nothing.

"The ring's responding to the energy input! Levels are holding steady… everything seems to be responding…"

Alfred leaned forward, a thrill starting to go through him. Whatever this object was, it was definitely worth investigating. He looked to the triangles again, a thought entering his mind.

"Hey… should we try putting in a code?"

Samantha looked over to him. "We're just testing out the basic systems now, sir… those tests won't be for another week at least."

Alfred greatly resisted the urge to pout, as he was supposed to be a professional here. That didn't stop the captain from noticing, hiding her own amusement behind a light smile as she ordered the system shut down so they could begin to go through the data.

Seeing as there was nothing else to do here, he said his goodbyes and made his way over to the artefact room, the coverstone towering overhead in the back while tables covered with documents and other smaller trinkets from the same dig stood along the walls. There were only a few people in there comparing notes in the corner, not even noticing his quiet entrance.

The lack of others was actually what Alfred had hoped for, as it allowed him to grab a chair and sit in it backwards, his arms laying on top of the back while his head rested on them. He was positioned to face the coverstone, which had been bothering him whenever his thoughts had drifted to it.

He knew that the central symbols were ones he'd never learned, but he couldn't help but feel they were familiar and he was just missing something. He huffed quietly, brows furrowed as he stared at the stone, mentally commanding it to tell its secrets. The stone remained unphased, leaving him to concede with a frustrated groan as he hid his face in his arms.

"I see you aren't having much more luck than the rest of us." An amused voice said behind him.

Alfred lifted his head. "Oh, hey Dr. Langford. I just… I feel like I should know the answer, but it's not coming to me."

Catherine smiled sympathetically. "I doubt there's anyone who would get it right away. Ernest spent years working on this project before…"

"Your husband worked on the first Giza project?" He asked, sitting up straight.

"Fiance." She corrected. "We didn't have a chance to get married before the accident that shut the project down."

Alfred frowned, turning in his seat to properly face her. That hadn't been mentioned in the report in much detail. "Accident? What happened?"

"I was told by my father there was some sort of explosion that damaged the old testing facility; Ernest was the only casualty. They shut the project down after that to prevent anyone else from getting injured."

Explosion? He was more confused than ever - he had seen the room where the tests had happened the first time around, and there was definitely no sign of an explosion. Was all this part of the cover-up too? Still, Catherine had just become his best lead whether she was aware of it or not.

"Do you know anyone he worked with who would still be around?"

She bit her lip in thought. "The only names I recall off the top of my head are Erik Holland and Duncan Fraiser. I don't know if either of them are alive though."

Alfred, however, did. The former had died just last year from a heart attack, but the latter was still alive and currently living with his granddaughter in Maryland. If he was lucky, he'd finally be able to get the information he needed, or at least a good lead towards it.

However, he couldn't get too excited now. Instead he smiled and shrugged, leaning back into the seat. "Ah well, they would've been pretty helpful working on this project."

Catherine seemed to sense something in his tone, though, because she gave him an odd look. "Yes, it would have."

He stood up, stretching a bit to ease out the crinks he'd developed while sitting awkwardly in the chair. "Anyways, I'm gonna check out some other things before hitting the hay; thanks for the chat."

"You're welcome."

Alfred could almost feel the eyes watching him leave the room, making him crack another smile. He wondered idly if she'd make another more thorough search into their locations; it wasn't completely out of the question considering the flags and questions he'd probably raised with his own.

Ah well, anything she found would come well after he'd already had his chat with the man. Being who he was certainly had its conveniences sometimes-

He stopped, hand slapping to his mouth as another wave of hacking coughs left him short of breath and his hand soaked. Luckily no one was there to see, or he'd have some quick thinking to do.

 _Sometimes_  was definitely the emphasised word in there.

~0~0~

"Boss, I found the documents."

President Clinton stopped, looking up from his papers to see the young man who'd just walked in, a serious expression on his face. "Which ones?"

"The ones from the first Giza project. They were being kept in the Pentagon's Army wing; someone purposefully mislabeled them so they wouldn't be found." Alfred's face softened a bit. "I got a few trustworthy guys from there to help me go through the stuff and get it out, and I think we managed to find everything."

The president sat up straight. "Good work, Alfred. Did it have any more information on what the ring does?"

"Yes sir… there's hundreds of hours of footage of their experiments with the ring, along with piles of documents and recorders." The expression on Alfred's face was sobering. "They managed to activate it."

"What?"

"Through trial and error, they managed to find a combination on the ring that activated it. They sent someone through the portal that it formed, and when the portal cut out they decided to cut the program rather than risk any more lives on this 'death gate'."

President Clinton sagged back into his chair, feeling much older suddenly. "Does that mean we should cut the program?"

Alfred softened again. "I don't think so, sir; whatever that gate did, it didn't kill him."

"What?" The president felt rather foolish repeating the question, but he truly felt out of his depth.

"Ernest Littlefield; I can't describe it, but I can still sort of… sense him, I guess. I didn't try looking for it until I saw the footage, but wherever he is, he's not dead." He man pursed his lips. "It's really weird though… it's so faint I can barely feel it even when I'm focusing on it."

"...what does that mean?"

"Well, considering the stretch I felt when the astronauts were on the moon… either there's something blocking it somehow, or he's really, really far away."

"And how far are we talking?"

"Outside the solar system."

"...oh."

Well, what else could he say to that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeaaaaaaaaaah, hahaha... this is the main divergence point from the canon timeline. I was trying to make it so that Abydos came first, but Alfred refused to budge on the matter. So yeah there'll be focus on the Heliopolis arc first, with the build up to Abydos in the background.
> 
> Also, not to worry, Jack and Daniel will be coming in soon. I've just been waiting for the right points to introduce them so it doesn't feel like I threw them in just to say they're there. I pride myself on my stories making sense, damnit! (Also, if you can guess the hidden reference I made to another character, you win a cookie!)
> 
> The two OC names I threw out there are actually the names of the actors who played Paul Langford in the movie and series respectively. Any other OCs I name will probably be the same, so I guess that's something to look out for.


	4. Pilot Arc: Divergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The old timeline is abruptly derailed as the main Giza project is set to the side for bigger rewards.

Samantha Carter, owner of a shiny new PhD in astrophysics at the relatively young age of 30 and recipient of several well-earned awards and decorations for her military service (and definitely  _not_  because her father was a military officer, despite what rumors had abounded in military school), could only sit and gape with the other officers and scientists who were watching the footage with her.

They'd all known to some degree that there were experiments with the Ring in the past, but none of them had ever really thought about what they'd tried. None of them, she could guarantee then and there, had ever dared imagined that the first Giza Project had  _succeeded_.

Gasoline, manpower, and perseverance. It was so utterly unlikely, and yet so perfectly representative of what the military could accomplish, of what  _people_  could accomplish, given the drive and patience to see it through.

There were several quite sharp inhalations around her when the suited scientist - Littlefield, wasn't it? - stepped through the vertical watery portal, disappearing into the unknown. There was no movement besides the long hose being pulled through the portal… at least, until the Ring shut off abruptly, leaving a cleanly severed hose and a flurry of concerned scientists to start yelling over each other as several moved towards the Ring, only one thinking in passing to stop the recording and end the footage.

There was a long stretch of silence in the meeting room, everyone too busy going over the footage in their minds and trying to think of something,  _anything_ , that could adequately convey their thoughts to the rest of the room.

Then someone snorted behind her in amusement, drawing attention from everyone in the room.

"Guy's got big balls, stepping through that portal without knowing what it does or where it goes." Colonel Jack O'Neill, ten years her senior and, if she recalled correctly, once part of the special ops, leaned back in his chair, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'd shake hands with him if he was still around."

Sam had to admit, she would do the same if she could, if only because she wanted to know more about the man who gave his life for this project. More importantly though, that portal - if it was what she thought it was…

"Alright everyone, now that everyone's been brought up to speed, I have a few orders from higher up regarding the Giza Project." Colonel Jones - who couldn't have been any older than her - stood up, moving to the front and turning to look over them all. "The first is that research on the stone tablet is going to be put on temporary hiatus in favor of putting more manpower into organizing and reviewing all the data from the original Giza Project to see what we can use. Second…"

The officer paused, looking towards the side of the room where more of the scientists were sitting.

"...we are speeding up the testing schedule for the Ring, and preparing for our first Remote Vehicle mission through using the code the original project used to successfully activate it."

He looked back to the rest of the group. "You're all dismissed, but know that your orders and work schedules will all likely be affected by this. If this is what some of the higher ups believes it is, things just got much more interesting for us. Doctor Langford, if I could see you for a minute."

Sam stood with the others, too busy thinking of how the tests were going to have to be rearranged and also on whether that last comment confirmed her growing conviction that that portal was in fact a stable wormhole to pay attention to where she was walking. She knew she was going to have to sit down with some of the other scientists later to go over the data, but for now she navigated herself to the cafeteria, sitting down and instantly putting pen to paper, mind racing as she hastily scribbled down half-complete thoughts in the margins and backs of the sheets she'd been given-

"What're you working on there?"

She looked up as Jack sat down across from her, blinking as her flow was disrupted. "Just some thoughts, sir. I'm still finding what I just saw hard to believe."

"You're telling me." He took a bite out of the apple he'd brought with him, swallowing before continuing. "By the way, you're the one who's in charge of the computer here, right?"

"Yes, sir, Captain Samantha Carter." She offered a handshake.

He accepted, giving a firm shake before sitting back. "Colonel Jack O'Neill. Nice to meet you, Captain."

"Same to you, sir."

"So, what got you assigned to this place?"

"I have a doctorate in Astrophysics as well as experience with programming computers; even with how little we knew about the Ring when I was assigned, it was still assumed to be some form of off-world technology."

Jack quirked an eyebrow. "And because of your training, you were the best suited in the Air Force to deal with weird alien technology."

Sam smiled lightly. "Pretty much. What about you, sir?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Until we know more about that portal and whatever might be on the other side of it, I'm here to make sure nothing goes AWOL."

~0~0~

_Alive._

That singular word made up her entire world, a focus to hold onto as what she'd known until then came down around her. It didn't matter that it'd been nearly fifty years since Ernest had gone through, or that there was still no information on where he'd gone, if anywhere, but-

_He didn't die. The accident was made up._

_Ernest is_ _**alive** _ _._

Catherine held herself together as she and Alfred excused themselves to an unoccupied room; even after he'd shut the door he didn't say anything, watching her carefully, waiting for her to make the first move. She took several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down.

"He didn't die in an accident."

"No, it doesn't seem like it."

"My father- he knew I wouldn't give up on him if there was a chance-"

"And what could you have done?"

The question was asked calmly, startling her from the rant that was starting to build up inside of her. Alfred sighed, ducking his head and rubbing at his neck.

"Look, I don't know why your dad did what he did, but I don't think getting angry over this isn't going to help anyone right now."

"I know that- I just-" She couldn't imagine how exhausted she must look right now. "I've missed him so much, and to know there's even a chance he's alive…"

"I think I understand, Dr. Langford." Alfred smiled, teeth glimmering with a hundred unspoken secrets. "And I can assure you right now that if he is still alive then we will do everything in our power to make sure he returns home safe and sound."

Relief filled her - she hadn't even realized how nervous she'd been about that possibility until he'd brought it up. "I- Thank you."

"It's really nothing big- it's what we'd do for any brave man like him-"

"No, I meant for everything." She waved her hands around her. "Bringing the project back, providing funding, finding the old records, finding Ernest… I wouldn't have believed all of this possible a few years ago, but now…"

He laughed quietly. "Yeah, this has definitely been an interesting experience for both of us."

There was a brief lull in the conversation, both taking the moment to allow the changes of the past year to sink in. Catherine's finger tapped several times against the desk she was leaning against.

"Mr. Jones, there's something I've been wondering for a while."

Alfred's gaze rose to meet hers, seeming to already know what she would ask even before she did. "Yeah?"

"Who are you, really?"

Neither of their gazes flinched, allowing her to see the brief moment of - something - pass through them before it was covered with a grin.

"I'm just Alfred F. Jones, assistant to the President and Colonel in the US Air Force."

No Colonel has the air or authority you wield, she wanted to say. No assistant has the political ties and knowledge that you do, even at your age.

No one looks that much like their grandfather.

No one ages that slowly.

"You're an interesting person, Mr. Jones, I can say that much - more than you give yourself credit for."

He tilted his head in acknowledgement, grin unwavering. "I could say the same about you, Dr. Langford."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we truly get into the first arc of the story, and get the second of the core team into the story. For those who don't know – this is two years before Jack loses his son and his wife, so he doesn't have that hanging over his head yet. Also, it's unlikely for me to put any sort of romantic subplot into this, but I'll see as I get further into the verse.
> 
> In case you're curious, Catherine at some point remembered the Dr. Jones who would occasionally stop by the digs she and her father were at. Vaguely, but still.
> 
> Dr. Daniel Jackson will be coming along at some point in the relatively near future.


	5. Pilot Arc: Clearence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew is finally brought up to speed on just what his brother's been up to lately.

[July 1993]

As brothers and closely allied Nations, Matthew and Alfred had a long standing habit of meeting up to discuss issues that affected both of them, either directly or indirectly. Most of these meetings were of the unofficial sort, consisting mainly of complaints about the state of their governments or else just catching up whilst gaming or enjoying some other pastime.

The official meetings, though, generally signified that it was something Very Important. Something like would likely be discussed with some of their officials soon after, but required the basics being discussed ahead of time so that there was more time for them as Nations to determine how the topics of these meetings would affect them in the long term.

Naturally, Matthew was on high alert when his brother asked for the second sort of meeting, mind instantly searching for what his neighboring country could be planning. Was this about Iraq? Russia? Was there going to be another war, or was this something closer to home? It bothered him the entire week, though he did his best to focus on other things while waiting.

Approaching his brother's office, though, made all the concerns return at once. He freverently hoped this wasn't asking for military assistance.

"Hey Matt," Alfred greeted his brother, gesturing to the chair across from him. "Sorry for calling you over for a meeting on short notice like that."

"It's fine," Matthew smiled, accepting the offered seat. "You never told me what this was all about, though."

"Really? Dang, I know I'd forgotten something." The American pushed a small stack of folders over, waiting for his brother to pick up the first one before continuing. "You remember how we borrowed the lower levels of Cheyenne a while back for a project?"

Just short of opening the folder, Matthew glanced up to his brother with surprise. "You mean-"

"Boss finally gave the okay to bring you and NORAD into it." Alfred confirmed, allowing the Canadian to open the folder to look at the images of the original Giza dig findings. "This is the Giza Ring. It was first discovered in Egypt in 1928, and brought back to the US soon afterwards.

"Experiments were conducted on it through World War Two to see if it could be used as a weapon, but after its first successful activation the project was scrapped and buried. It was thought that Dr. Ernest Littlefield, who had been chosen to go through the wormhole the ring had generated, had died, but we - I - had reason to believe he was still alive.

"The current Giza Project started up again in early February 1981, after getting in contact with Dr. Catherine Langford, whose father and fiance had both been key members of the first project. The supercomputer built in Cheyenne at the time along with the other two more recent additions were reprogrammed by Captain Samantha Carter and her team to synchronise with the ring, allowing us to activate it and dial the code that was used in the first project."

Alfred reached over to open the second folder, showing images of a ruined room that was nothing like that on Earth. "Upon successful activation, we sent through one of our MALPs to determine what things were like on the other side. After ten seconds of no video or radio feed - our assumption of that being the travel time - we received our first images of what we soon concluded was another planet, since no structure like this currently exists on Earth.

"We gathered data for the next thirty-eight minutes before the Ring shut down on its own - some sort of time limit built into the object itself, apparently. By the time we'd processed enough of the data to determine the planet has a breathable atmosphere different enough from our own to support the New World theory, Captain Carter and Dr. Langford had gotten permission from the President to override General West's hold on reactivating the Ring in order to acquire samples to send back through for analysis.

"Upon activation of the Ring and reacquiring contact with the MALP, we discovered that Dr. Littlefield had in fact survived all this time on the foreign world. He had been examining the MALP when the video feed kicked back in, and, well…" Alfred laughed a bit. "Let's just say we're pretty sure the planet's average temperature is higher than ours.

"After we sent a two way radio through to confirm to him that we were members of the US Air Force, he was more than happy to share everything he'd learned about the planet during his fifty years there. He also accidentally showed us that the Ring only works one way for physical matter - when he threw through some of the smaller pieces of rubble for chemical analysis, the only thing we received on our side was a brief surge of energy.

"We've sent in food, clothing, and a mobile video camera that would send footage through the MALP to us. His main project has been exploring the alien database he found there, which he says is the compiled data from four races that used to work together ages ago. From what he's managed to translate, the site was called 'Heliopolis', and was the scientific and political hub of the galaxy during its heyday.

"Due to the strategic importance acquiring such data would have, both for the military and for the scientific community, General West was allowed to organize a squadron, lead by Colonel Jack O'Neill, to go through the Ring and help secure the building and the database. Dr. Langford also went through the Ring to rejoin her fiance and study the database, along with several other scientists.

"As it stands currently, the main projects aside from the retrieval of everything in the Heliopolis archive are to stabilize the structure as much as possible against the upcoming summer storms and to figure out a way to activate the Ring from their side so that two way transportation is possible. Our only lead so far is the broken structure that has symbols matching the Ring on their side, which is likely what used to dial the Ring. Captain Carter is working with several others to see if it is possible to juryrig a power source for the structure, and Dr. Littlefield and Dr. Langford are looking to see whether the database contains the code that will connect them back to Earth."

Alfred leaned back, linking his fingers together. "We're hoping to find out where exactly Heliopolis is in relation to us spacially, to see if we can train some of our Earth-based telescopes in that direction. It will probably take at least another year to be certain of the distance, though, seeing as images of their night sky need to be processed and compared to ours to match up stars, but our current best guess based on initial images is that it's within five hundred light years."

Matthew found himself unable to speak, trying to look through all the images and documents while processing everything his brother had just told him. A wormhole-creating device that allowed one to simply - walk out onto a new world? Alien databases from ancient civilizations? "What have you learned so far from it?"

"So far?" Alfred opened the last folder. "That there's 146 stable elements in the universe, and that the four races used it to communicate as a basic universal language. We also know that it'll take years to transmit all the data through, and probably decades to process it all."

"Why didn't you say anything about this before now?"

"We didn't know what it did at first; we didn't retrieve the information from the first Giza Project until mid-March, and the official Heliopolis mission only started three weeks ago. We're sort of learning as we go along here."

Matthew nodded, lips pressed together slightly. "Are you going to bring in other countries as well?"

Alfred shook his head. "Not yet; we're waiting until we have the two way system setup and the surrounding area explored and secured before we think about bringing in more countries to help. On top of that, Heliopolis is currently sitting on the edge of a cliff; we don't think it can survive many more years before part of the place collapses into the ocean unless we put in a lot of support bearings. We have no clue if having too many people there at once will cause something to give out early, so we want to be certain it can handle having that many people around."

"Ah," Matthew looked back down to the documents briefly. "Then why bring me in now?"

"You're my bro, duh," The American replied immediately. "And because you have a lot of the people and resources we need in order to maintain the Heliopolis base and any other potential outposts we might choose to build should we get access to other habitable planets. Plus it'd really help if we have NORAD on board so we can convert more of Cheyenne for use with this project."

"At least you're honest about it." The Canadian laughed a little, still feeling a bit overwhelmed at the sheer scope of this secret project. "You weren't kidding about this being huge."

Alfred laughed. "I told you it'd blow your mind. Let's just hope that whoever your prime minister is will be on board with all this."

"A chance to gain access to alien technology and knowledge? I don't think anyone would turn that down." Matthew paused thoughtfully. "What does Tony think of all this?"

"He's not back from his mission yet; I dunno if he'll know anything about the Ring or about Heliopolis, but at least I can ask."

Matthew closed the folders, gathering all of them together. "When were you thinking of having the meeting with our bosses about this?"

"Probably after your elections; it'd be a pain to bring your current boss into it just to have to do it again in a few months when a new one gets elected in."

"I think Kim's going to hold office; she seems pretty good, and my people like her. I get what you mean though, so I'll go over this with General Clements and some other people under him who are trustworthy first. Can I take all of these papers with me?"

"They're all yours; just make sure not to lose any of them, because we're still trying to keep all this on the down low for now."

Matthew nodded in thanks. "That should make it easier to explain to them."

"Hey, Mattie," Alfred stopped his brother as he rose from the seat to leave. "When you're all done bringing your guys in on the project, call me up; I'll show you some of the footage we've gotten of the place so far."

"That sounds like fun."

It was only when he was stepping out of the building that he stopped, laughing briefly as he realized he'd indeed agreed to giving military assistance to his brother after all.

"At least it's not for war this time," He muttered to himself, shaking his head and wondering just what his brother had gotten himself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, kind Stargate fan who reminded me that indeed the Canadian government was in on it much earlier, thus making it easy for me to bring Matthew in this chapter, ahaha. I debated whether to show all the earlier things happening, but I decided it was better to sort of introduce what had happened so far through Alfred.
> 
> I've basically got everything lined out for the rest of this arc, so it shouldn't be too hard to write it all out. Just have no clue how many chapters it'll actually take to get through it to the Abydos arc (which, if I'm right, was in early- to mid-1994, while this story is currently in summer 1993, so that means I'll be able to handle the whole Ra showdown-thingy - although it'll probably go a bit differently...)
> 
> Anyways, jumping back to Stargate Command next chapter - let me know what you wanna see! I can basically go over whatever was discussed in this chapter in more detail, or I can go into whatever. Just lemme know, yeah?


	6. Pilot Arc: Heliopolis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief glimpse into the lives of those who went through the Gate knowing it was one way indefinitely.

Janet Fraiser looked down at her patient with all the annoyance she could muster. Considering she'd gone two weeks without a drop of caffeine, and had spent the same amount of time chastising dozens of people for similar reasons to his own, it was an impressive amount.

The soldier squirmed under her sharp, unforgiving gaze, satisfying the doctor enough to let up slightly.

"I thought I told all of you not to attempt moving any of the larger pieces of debris in case they were stabilising something, and what's the first thing you all do?"

He shifted. "We were under orders to clear the way to the database room, ma'am."

She sniffed, turning away in a show of disdain. "And look where those orders have gotten you; you won't be able to use that arm for at least two weeks, if you're lucky. If we weren't stuck here, I'd order you back to Earth right now."

With the limited amount of medical supplies available to her right now, the best she could do was wrap the shoulder so he couldn't move it too much and send him off with a warning to the other soldiers. Sighing, she settled back into her chair (a cheap folding one, but one of only a handful sent through), rubbing at her forehead while looking at what patient files she had.

Dr. Littlefield was her prominent one - after decades of isolation from Earth, he'd needed immunization shots for quite a few things lest he get ill from something one of the soldiers or scientists brought with them. Needless to say, he hadn't been happy, but Dr. Langford had stared him down until he'd meekly agreed to get them over with.

"That man is either extremely lucky or extremely unlucky," She mumbled to herself, looking through his self-reported records of everything he'd sampled over the past fifty years.

Fruits, nuts, and the rare animal or fish had been his entire diet; considering they were on an alien world with an unknown biochemistry, he was lucky any of it was edible at all. Several of the foods had proven indigestible, but the rest had been making for decent additions to the bland military rations.

Her gaze briefly slipped over to the crates, each empty for now but soon to be filled once two-way Ring transport was secured. They were all destined to be filled with the various foodstuffs from around Heliopolis, labeled with their intended good's tentative names.

Tangfruit. Cracknut. Blue Cherries. Little Hellions.

She snorted in remembrance of the last one - someone had decided to try and capture the rat-squirrel-like creatures that populated the area for research purposes (read: edibility), only to find out the things got vicious when startled - and brought their friends. The guy had been a sorry mess, but in the end a group had gotten together a trap that would actually capture the things without injury to either party.

Besides self-inflicted injuries, she'd also had to deal with people coming down with colds again and again as their bodies become introduced to a literal world of new bacteria and bugs. It was a small miracle no one had gotten seriously ill yet, and that what did come about was easily dealt with through isolation and antibacterials.

'Probably because there haven't been humans - or human equivalents - in a long time, so nothing's really evolved to attack our systems.'

Dr. Littlefield was proof enough of that concept - he'd have more than likely died if there was truly anything lethal to humans lingering around the base. Not to say there wasn't a chance of something coming along as they all lingered. Hopefully they would never reach that point here, but on other worlds?

God, the medical nightmares just from that thought were giving her a headache. If she didn't know that there was serious discussion (started by her efforts, in fact) to come up with a hazmat suit of some sort that the soldiers and scientists could wear on future missions to whatever other worlds were out there, she'd probably pitch a fit.

There was a brief crashing noise from down the hall, followed by heavy cursing. She groaned, already pushing away from her makeshift desk to prepare for the next group of idiots who'd decided to move things around in the base without considering the ceiling or walls might fall in on them.

Really, she needed to have word with General West and Colonel O'Neill one of these days about all this.

Preferably before everyone was too injured to actually do their jobs.

~0~0~

There was sometime comforting about peering through a personal telescope at the stars, Jack O'Neill decided, even if those stars weren't in quite the same places as the ones you'd grown up with. He pulled away briefly, readjusting the sight and tilting it slightly to keep the star he'd been looking at centered.

The eggheads who'd come through to Heliopolis were all well and determined to find out exactly where the star they were now orbiting was in relation to the good old Sun. Some of them were attempting to get a spectrographic reading of the star to send through for comparison to Earth's database of stars, while others were going a more classic route of combing the night sky for familiar stars to orient themselves to.

Needless to say, the latter group was part of the reason he was out here right now, making notes in a handy dandy notebook he'd been provided by with a smile.

' _I'm supposed to be here to guard the brainiacs while they work, but now I'm the one doing their work,_ ' he grumbled to himself. ' _Not that there's much to guard against aside from their own carelessness.'_

It was already pretty clear, both from Dr. Littlefield's reports and from his own group's scouting, that no one had lived anywhere near the Ring or Heliopolis in a long time. Heck, there were barely any animals running around, and he'd yet to hear birdsong during his time outside. He wasn't much of an ecologist, but he doubted that was normal.

' _Not my job to worry about where all the critters are; that's for other people to look into.'_

Not that there would be enough time for such a study. They either had the best or the worst timing in finding Heliopolis when they did - from the looks of things it'd only be a handful of years at most before at least part of the place collapsed into the ocean. Whether the Ring or the database were part of that chunk was yet to be decided, but it was extremely likely both would be damaged even if they didn't go right away.

It was a real shame, in his opinion - the sunsets were gorgeous, and the fruits the good doctor had pointed out were actually rather nice. The medics had, of course, been upset that they'd eaten food that hadn't come from Earth, but they'd conceded after it was pointed out that Dr. Littlefield had survived eating them for decades with seemingly no ill effect. Of course, they had also been worried about foreign bacteria, but the worst anyone had gotten so far was a mild cold, so no one was overly worried about it at the moment.

Still, the scientists were getting jittery, and not from coffee - they had boxes and boxes of samples they wanted to send through to Earth, but as they'd yet to find any sort of mention of Ring codes that could be input to see if they would link to other worlds, or even back home.

 _Home._  Hard to believe that it was so far away, really, even with the alien world and sun and stars around him. His family - his wife, his son, his cousins and parents and everyone else - were light years away from here. How long would it be before he saw any of them again? He'd been beginning to think of retirement when he'd been brought in for this project, and though it felt like a crime to leave something so big, he also felt like he wouldn't be able to live a family life if he were to stay on past this mission.

' _Damn shame, though,'_  Jack mused, looking out across the dark ocean. ' _Sara would love it here.'_

Maybe if (or when) the Stargate ever became known to the general public, he could see if he could pull a bit of weight to take her and Charlie to whatever world seemed nicest. Not entirely likely, but he could daydream, at least.

...he was getting distracted again. Shaking his head, the colonel turned back to the eyepiece to the telescope, frowning when he realized the star he'd been looking at had moved yet again since he'd started reminiscing. ' _I'm really getting old, losing track of time like that. Guess it's a good thing I'm retiring after this anyways.'_

One last glance out across the ocean had him frowning - some of the stars were starting to vanish behind cloud cover. He probably didn't have much time left for stargazing tonight - or for this week, if it hung around.

' _Storm's coming_ ,' He grimaced. ' _Hope we're all ready for it.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes my friend is a wonderful person who helps me realize exactly where my stories need to go to really hit that wealth of potential. This is for you, friend who is probably one of only ten people to read this story.
> 
> So yeah, Janet and Jack featured in this chapter! This is before Charlie shoots himself, so Jack's not all traumatised from it. That'll be a not fun thing to write about. On the other hand, cheers for badass ladies and the idiots they have to put up with. I am gonna put a lot of work into all the female characters of the series, because they deserve the screentime.
> 
> Let me tell you, though, that looking up potential stars that Heliopolis could be around AND trying to figure out how the night sky would change at 300 light years away from Earth isn't easy. I've taken liberties, though I can at the least confirm that there IS a star - several - which sits about the right distance away and has the right classification.
> 
> This particular star is Hip 69185, if you care to look it up. It's a G8V - a bit cooler and smaller than our sun, but fairly similar otherwise. Abydos' star is Hip 14613, a G3V. The research I do for you guys!


	7. Pilot Arc: General Concerns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew gets a bit of insight into the man in charge of the Stargate Program.

"-I promise you, Mattie, seeing the thing in real life is so much cooler than the pictures or videos make it look."

Matthew shook his head, grinning slightly. "I believe you, Al; we just have other things we need to focus on first before we stop by the control room."

Alfred sighed, grimacing. "I know, I know, need to update the General and all that about the new policies to phase in more NORAD personnel."

Though they were both in military uniform, neither felt the need at the moment to maintain any sort of formality, as they were the only two in the elevator heading down to the lowest levels, where the Giza Project was rapidly reorganizing in order to take advantage of the influx of room and personnel.

The Canadian shrugged. "It won't take too long, then we can go through all the films you wanted to show me."

"I guess." The southern brother sighed.

The elevator shuddered to a halt, prompted the two to straighten up and put on their more professional faces. By the time the doors opened, Colonels Jones and Williams were in place, stepping out and walking at a steady pace towards General West's office.

The man stood as they entered, saluting in respect to their unofficial ranks. "America. Canada."

"General West." Matthew greeted, sitting down in the proffered seat next to his brother after they returned the salute.

"I assume you've already been informed of the recent changes in base operations?"

"NORAD and the Canadian government have been informed of the Giza Project and its current status, to take advantage of the extra resources and space made available in exchange for a portion of anything discovered on the other side of the Ring."

"That's pretty much the gist," Alfred replied with a flicker of a smile. "Have you spoken with General Clements yet about bring him and his men up to speed on current ops and info?"

"I have a meeting scheduled with him tomorrow at 1400. I'm assuming both of you will be sitting in on it as well?"

"That's the plan." Matthew nodded slightly.

General West pressed his lips together into a frown. "Are you certain it's safe to bring other countries into the project so soon, sir?"

"General." Alfred cautioned.

He older-looking man continued. "I meant no insult to our closest allies; I couldn't imagine better support should we continue expanding our operations than our northern neighbors. However, as of now we have next to no information on what may lie beyond other exit points for the Ring."

The General stood, looking away from the two through the window looking out onto the mission room floor, where soldiers and scientists alike were hard at work. "Some of the best minds here have told me the Ring could potentially link to hundreds, even thousands of other matching Rings out there. Some of them could even be in the hands of other intelligent species, like the ones who built Heliopolis."

He turned to look back at the two Nations, straightening further. "There's always the chance, though, that some of those species will be less than friendly to our exploration efforts, and if they have sufficient technology they could pose a serious threat to the United States and to Earth as a whole.

"But as it stands, we have no plan in place for if we encounter such hostiles!" Here General West hardened, a new sharpness in his eyes. "We have no way to prevent them from walking straight into our base and catching us with our pants down. No way to disable the Ring, whether temporarily or permanently, on either side. And no way to recall our offworld forces should we be forced to rebury or destroy the Ring for an extended length of time."

" _Destroy_  it?" Alfred gawked briefly at the idea before throwing his military face back on.

"A last resort, but one that needs to be considered if such hostile forces are too advanced for us to handle. I'd rather lose the program then risk the lives of this country and this planet."

The southern Nation, now recomposed, frowned. "...I won't deny you have a point. We don't know what's out there, and not preparing for the worst would just invite trouble that much sooner.

"But-" And here he held up a finger. "First off, this isn't something that can be solved right away. We need to decide what the most effective for cost defenses would be, and implement them without too much disruption to operations. That will require the input from the President, the Prime Minister, and all of the relevant brass and civilians.

"Second, we don't know exactly what the theoretical hostiles will have in terms of technology, which means that no matter what we do there are things we simply can't prepare for until we have that information, which all but requires further exploration. There's even the chance that the key to defending against or defeating hostiles will be out there as well, waiting for us to find it and bring it home to utilize.

"Third, as it stands the Giza program has the potential to provide more wealth and technological advancement than any other program in human history, even Apollo. Destroying the gate should and will be the absolute last case scenario. Reburying the Ring temporarily is something more likely to be approved in case we need more time to deal with threats, but destruction of the gate - if it's even possible with our current technology - will prevent us from ever reactivating the program at a future point.

"And fourth…" Alfred softened a bit. "For every hostile race out there, there has to be one that will be friendly or at least neutral to us. Races that we could interact with, trade with, make alliances with. I know there are friendly beings out there - at least one I can be positive of - and where there's one, there has to be more, right?"

General West said nothing for a moment, though Alfred could see him mulling over his words with a small frown. "You have good points, sir. And I will concede that the benefits of continuing the program far outweigh the risks at this time. We cannot, however, keep going forward without at least some precautions to minimize the risks involved."

"Completely understandable," Matthew injected, shooting a fast look to his brother to keep him from arguing further. "And something that should definitely be brought up during tomorrow's meeting, when we have more people to discuss ideas and necessary measures. In the meantime, you could have some of your people here start coming up with basic designs to put forward in the meeting so that we have a better idea of what is and isn't feasible going into the planning stages."

"I can get that started immediately, then." The General nodded in thanks.

Matthew smiled lightly. "It's a good thing you brought your concerns up now - we'll have more time than if we were scrambling later on to react to something none of us suspected. Was there any other concerns you wanted to bring up before tomorrow?"

"That was my only major worry, but I doubt I'll have to worry about it for too much longer. Thank you both for taking what I said under consideration."

"No problem, General." Alfred smiled, accepting the handshake offered before standing, waiting for his brother to do the same. "We're looking forward to whatever you manage to bring forward tomorrow to deal with it."

Only once they were well away from the office did Matthew turn on his twin, frowning. "Did you have to almost start a fight with the General? We're trying to stay on good terms with the people leading the project."

"I wasn't going to start a fight," Alfred frowned. "I know exactly where he's coming from, but that doesn't mean I can just let him all but stop any sort of significant advancement in the program."

"What do you mean?" The Canadian frowned, his mind going back over the meeting.

"He was in Vietnam during the war," That derailed any train of thought the norther brother was considering. "And that breeds a certain type of officer. One that wants to keep things under as tight a control as possible in the face of futility."

"-oh." Matthew shook his head. "Full militarization?"

Alfred simply nodded. "With the check and balances provided by the civilians and the President, most of his stuff has been reigned in to reasonable levels. Left to his own devices, though…"

"Hopefully, it won't ever come to that."

"Hopefully."

There was a long stretch of silence after that, neither of them willing to admit out loud the stronger possibility of such an event coming to pass. All they could do was prepare for it, in the end.

Eventually Alfred shook himself out of the mood, grin back in place. "Now that that's all done, did you wanna go see the Ring for yourself? There should be another check-in with Exobase-01 in about seventeen minutes."

Matthew smiled as well, shoulders relaxed. "That sounds good. We need to let Dr. Langford and Colonel O'Neill know about the changes as well, right?"

The American just groaned, drawing a burst of laughter from his brother. "God, let's just enjoy the moment and not think about more work, alright?"

"Sure, Al, whatever you say."

"Ass," was muttered with a hint of bemusement as the two resumed their walk towards the control room, putting the meeting with the General to the back of their minds in favor of more uplifting things.

Neither of them forgot, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah we're working through Heliopolis and slowly transitioning into Abydos. I know this story isn't all that popular, especially next to Hero Training, but I'm still open to whatever any of you want to see! ...Well, if it fits within my plans, anyways.


	8. Pilot Arc: Star Path Directions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney McKay really wished he had coffee. And a working toilet. And wasn't stuck on an alien planet away from both.

[October 1993]

Some days, Dr. Rodney McKay really wished he was back at Area 51 instead of stranded on some alien world. Even the actual challenge of working with an alien database millions of years ahead of anything produced by humans didn't remove the fact that the place was run down, exposed to the elements and who knew how many kinds of diseases and hostile creatures, and most importantly lacked any sort of working plumbing, which was really unsanitary and honestly why hadn't anyone bothered to fix that yet?

The Giza Project had caught his interest from the moment the team he'd worked with back in Nevada had been informed discreetly about the program several years ago, though he'd been more interested in the datasets from the device (and the Heliopolis computer) than actually seeing everything in person. When they'd been told they needed someone capable of working with computers that ran on an entirely different tier of technology, he'd been volunteered by the others for the job.

Unfortunately for him, the military had accepted, hence why he'd been dragged away from his perfectly nice Ring datasets (which he'd been on the verge of a breakthrough about, damnit all), put through too many physical and mental health exams, and unceremoniously shoved through the wormhole into what turned out to be the sad ruins of what was once an incredibly advanced place.

At least the company was decent. And by company he meant the computer - the people around weren't even decently versed in the basics of multidimensional astrophysics, and watching their eyes glaze over as he went on about the data only satisfied his pride for so long.

Fuck, he wanted some coffee.

Rodney allowed his head to fall against the database's access stand, cursing his luck again. He couldn't even get some time to talk to that Carter woman about his theories about the Ring's unused feedback signals because she was apparently too sensitive about the flaws in the current dialing program.

Whatever, it wasn't his problem if she wasn't going to listen to his advice. He had bigger things to worry about, like how in the heck he was going to find the specific Ring address that would get him (and a lot of valuable material) back to Terra Firma before these ruins collapsed into the ocean.

As if to remind Rodney of his looming deadline, the walls shook briefly, the storm outside batting against the ancient structure and winds howling down the exposed tunnels. The database was far enough away from any serious damage that the sounds were mostly muffled, but Rodney still jumped slightly every time the room shook because of a lightning strike or strong gust of wind.

(At least it wasn't as bad as the time a few of the boneheaded soldiers thought it'd be funny to put one of those Little Hellions into his room early in the morning, waking him and subsequently the entire building with his screams. At least the Corporal had taken them away to talk to them about interfering with important personnel.)

Well, he was awake again, even if it wasn't thanks to the modern comfort of coffee. Since none of the others had come back yet from their break, it was as good a time as any to actually get some work in without having to explain everything he was doing twice to the less gifted types he was now being forced to work with.

After a brief moment he opened up his copy of Dr. Littlefield's translations and research, which already had plenty of scratch outs and scribbled additions by his own hand as he made his way further into the archive than the older man had. Unfortunately, though there had been plenty of tantalizing information on other things, he still hadn't located anything about the Ring or how to get home.

Rodney ran a hand over his mouth, stepping back for a moment to look at the current information floating overhead, which vaguely translated seemed to be an energy curve for an engine design for FTL travel, which if fully translated and utilized would set space travel forward hundreds of years - well, not that the Ring hadn't already.

If only it had been the manual for this archive instead.

"You'd think the guy would have found something in the last fifty years that translates to 'wormhole', or at least to 'Ring'." Rodney muttered to himself, stepping back to the platform to start another search chain that would hopefully provide something that would direct him in the right direction.

They didn't even have the word for 'door', for goodness sake! He was no literary master, but he figured that even aliens would have synonyms for the Ring relating to doorways or something similar. The closest word they currently had was 'path', which had for the last three attempts only led to a layout of the planet from several million years ago, what looked like star routes between this galaxy and another, and finally this engine design.

All great and wonderful for everyone else. Not so great for Rodney, who could feel his pride being chipped at.

They didn't even have a word that could lead them to a dictionary! At least with that Rodney could find the right words to input for another run through the repository.

Maybe he needed to use another seed word. But what was there to use? "Space" didn't turn up anything other than star maps of the Local Cluster, same with "galaxy" when it'd been put in again. "Travel" only showed ship designs and energy calculations, and everything else gave information so unrelated he didn't even bother considering it-

"Wait, wait a second. Star maps… star- star!" Rodney could've clapped his hands together at the burst of inspiration if had hadn't already been busy searching the word in the database. Unfortunately, all it got him was more star maps and the composition of the local sun (which despite his scowl he wrote down, because that was gonna make finding where this star was in Earth's skies a lot easier).

He sat back again, staring up at the real-time images of Helios (as the star had been informally dubbed by the expedition), wondering what he was missing. It had to be something to do with 'star', because the Ring involved controlled one-way travel betwee-

"Star path," He muttered, this time indulging in slapping his head at how obvious a solution it was in hindsight. Wormholes were just paths between two points in space, and if the people who'd made this database thought in any way similarly to how he did-

Rodney couldn't hold back a victorious grin when the star was replaced with the familiar image of the Ring, laughter bubbling up as he imagined how he was going to brag about this victory. He was going home, and civilization had never seemed sweeter and more enticing.

Well, he conceded internally as the smile started to drop, after he figured out to get from here to the addresses. He stood back again, ignoring the others who were just trailing in and stopping to stare at the display, thinking of how he'd go from 'star path' to 'star path address' without the word 'address'.

Code? Nope. Didn't have the word.

Number? No way, the symbols had already been determined to not be any sort of counting system.

Maybe he was overthinking it? He tried 'star path star' and 'star path path', both of which only came back to the Ring again. He groaned, turning to look at the silent audience with a glare.

"Are you all gonna stand there like a bunch of monkeys or are you actually going to help me?"

"Well, what did you put in there to get that?" One older guy, who Rodney only remembered after a moment was Corporal O'Neill, directed his attention to him with a frown.

" 'Star path', but that's not the actual translation, just similar enough that the system recognizes it. I need a word that translates to 'address' in order to get to the actual information we want."

"Code?"

"Don't have the word for it." Rodney shut down immediately.

The corporal frowned, looking back up to the image of the Ring. "Directions."

...that was a word they knew. Dr. McKay turned back to the archive panel, adding the new word to the search, and stepping back as hundreds of six symbol addresses started rolling by, each with more untranslated names next to them which held no meaning but still made Rodney struggle between shock that it'd worked and elation for finally piecing it all together.

"Looks like crossword puzzles are good for something after all," The corporal muttered to himself; Rodney resisted making a face at that, shaking his head as he realized there was still work to be done. Namely, Earth's address. And also to figure out that seventh symbol.

Ah well, that wasn't going to be nearly as much of a challenge as getting to the information in the first place had been. At least, not if the replacement dialing device worked like it was supposed to.

He could practically taste the coffee waiting for him back on Earth already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ehelp, I can relax for a bit, so all is well. Well, at least as much as I can when I start realizing all the little details I got wrong here and there in the series and just holes in the story overall.
> 
> *sighs* Ah well, I was able to go back and change a few things, but you don't really need to go back and check them unless you want to. It might add a slightly different direction to the whole thing, but not one that couldn't have been worked in either way. I at least feel better about it all being accurate as it can be now! That's something.


	9. Interlude: Progression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude where Matthew contemplates his new life as provided by the Giza Program.

[November 1993]

Matthew couldn't believe how different everything in his life was for a mere four months ago, back when his main worry had been trying to minimize the number of wars he got dragged into because of his brother. Now he was in what was quickly becoming the highest tech research and military institute in the world thanks to the steady funding from two countries who were more than willing to invest in reclaimed alien technology and engineering.

He could understand, a bit, why the US and Alfred were still so hesitant about bringing this up to the rest of the world - there was a power here, a knowledge that every day they held onto this they gained more traction in what would be a cascade of economic upheaval once this technology stopped being used here only and started making its way out into the wider world.

(Though the governments believed they could keep it under lockdown indefinitely, it was impossible to believe it could last forever. It never had, and it never would.

Something would have to break eventually.)

The sirens went off, with the speaker system quickly coming on after it. "Incoming wormhole; coded from Heliopolis Base. Clear the Ring room for incoming payload."

He still wasn't used to the sheer magnificence of the Ring, watching the entire formation sequence without blinking until it settled into its ethereal blue pool, both only disturbed when the first of the trolleys with the latest batch of alien goods emerged.

It was almost impossible to see from here, but the metal locks holding the Ring in place had been altered slightly, now capable of opening and retracting if necessary. In addition, the space directly under the Ring had been bored into, leaving a long, narrow, and deep hole that would just fit the alien object if it were dropped into it.

That was Code 01-4713, the first line of defense. After all, why waste the ammo of the turrets placed around the Ring and the lives of good people on defending if you could just prevent the enemy from getting in at all? It would also, as happily noted by more than one engineer, make a lot of weapons with less energy than a nuclear bomb utterly useless, as the energy would be more likely to feed back through the wormhole due to lack of impediment than blast up into the room.

Of course, there were a dozen other defenses just for the room itself, not to mention many of the soldiers (and civilians) had started to be trained in fighting within the corridors and stairwells of the rest of the base. If there was one thing agreed upon, it was that nothing that came through that Ring was going to ever see Earth's sun unless it was approved by Command first.

Actually, that reminded him…

Matthew turned away from the Ring and his musings, making his way down some now familiar hallways into a large room that had only recently started seeing serious human traffic again.

The coverstone, the reason the Giza Project had even been started up again in the first place, and now the focus of more intense research now that the scientists who had gone through to Heliopolis were now able to return and apply their new knowledge to the task. It was a shame Dr. Littlefield and Dr. Langford were going to retire once it was decoded, but after all they'd been through, he figured they deserved it.

(Alfred had already stealthily arranged the paperwork so that - should they still choose to get married after all - they would have no issues with bureaucracy. He was such a sucker for happily ever afters, the dork.)

WIth the new knowledge of Ring addresses from their off world base, many had been guessing that the central markings, as clearly separated from the rest of the work as they were, were themselves an address of some sort. Which one it was hadn't been determined yet, as the symbols were still being compared to those on the Ring.

There was also the matter of the seventh symbol, and what its significance was to the entire sequence. The current most popular theories were that either it was some sort of Ring-unique symbol that told the other Ring what address was incoming, or else it took a broader set of coordinates (should several Rings be in close stellar proximity) and told the system which one it was interested in connecting to. The only clue they had was when anything other than the correct symbol was put in, the system locked and wouldn't open for almost a minute.

Matthew privately thought that that meant it was a safeguard of sorts, to prevent other technologies from intercepting and possibly disrupting Ring traffic. But he didn't have the degree of knowledge in the technology or the physics behind them to really say one way or another, so he kept to himself.

Still, the symbols in the center did seem strikingly familiar, like the answer was just out of reach. Alfred had mentioned the same issue and how frustrating it was, though he'd all but forgotten about it in the thrill of Heliopolis and actually seeing another world.

Shaking his head, Matthew turned away from the coverstone to look over to the last relic from the Giza dig - the fossils. Enough tests had been made that it was fairly settled that whatever they were, they had been alive, and had possibly lived on whatever other world the coverstone had led to. With that in mind, it wasn't hard for some of the more mythologically read to guess that perhaps there were other similar beings on that world that were similar in looks to the other Egyptian gods, with enough contact between the two worlds that the beings had made their way into the Egyptians' way of life for millennia.

Matthew frowned, tracing along the contours of the fossils with a finger until it hit the odd protrusions of what could have been nothing or else something very important.

If the ancient Egyptians had been in contact with possibly advanced aliens...

Why did they bury the Ring in the first place?

He really didn't want to acknowledge the sudden sinking feeling in his chest that told him he didn't want to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to Abydos! Which I promise will have a lot more action than Heliopolis has so far. I still have things planned for that place, but those are down the road just a bit so yeah. I'm actually still thinking about where the story's gonna go after Abydos, but since I have a few chapters planned for that arc yet I figure I have time to make more solid plans.
> 
> Man I really want to write for that other Stargate AU I saw on the KM where the Nations were actually Goa'uld (only not evil ones) because that'd just be hella interesting to explore. Sadly that is not this AU, but having the Nations around still has its own interesting implications in the long run.
> 
> Also, how okay would everyone be with me bringing in my other America and Canada characters (the nyos and 2ps and all that) as sort of side characters for certain arcs? I might do other nyos and/or 2p characters as well if I'm in need of OCs that are more than mentioned in passing, but as I'm trying to minimize that for the most part…. yeah.
> 
> (A last note, but did you know constellations drift and change over just a few thousands years as the stars move around? So why do the stargates have constellations familiar to Western astronomers when they were created more than fifty million years beforehand? I smell shenanigans, or perhaps laziness.)


	10. Abydos: Dr Jackson, I Presume?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danial Jackson finally makes his appearance and inadvertently solves the mystery of the Ring.

Daniel Jackson wasn't certain how he felt about being left in the rain with nothing but his luggage, an eviction notice from that morning, and a job offer from the US Air Force that had something to do with Ancient Egypt and his theories.

He was mostly surprised, needless to say; not even his peers took his ideas seriously, and it was hard to believe the military would be any more inclined to believe them. But it had been Dr. Catherine Langford who had handed the envelope to him, one of his role models thanks to her lifelong work the world over, and that was enough to convince him that this couldn't be fake.

Surprise thus lead to confusion - why was she working with the military? Did it have something to do with her sudden disappearance from the regular digs and academic circles she used to frequent?

And why did it involve him? Sure, he knew a lot about the ancient cultures of southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa, colloquially known as the Fertile Crescent, but that wasn't knowledge that would serve for any sort of modern day military campaign, not that he thought Dr. Langford would ever be involved in such a thing.

Daniel briefly remembered he was being soaked through, along with his bags, and ducked back inside with them before returning his attention to the envelope. He ran a finger along the flap, wondering what he was going to do. He had no job, no money, no apartment, and no possessions aside from those he had with him. This was the break he had been hoping for, but it was from the military, something he wasn't sure he wanted to get involved with.

There were only three things inside the envelope when he cracked it open - a small stack of papers swearing him and his work to secrecy, a note with the line to call should he accept, and a one-way plane ticket to Colorado scheduled the following afternoon.

They'd offered him just over a day to think about it before making a decision one way or the other. He wasn't sure whether it was generosity or they just knew he had no other options at that time.

"Well, curiosity killed the cat, I guess." Daniel sighed, running a hand through his hair as he looked up at nothing, lost in thought. A job was a job, and he had to trust Dr. Langford if nothing else. "I hope I have enough antihistamines to last me to my paycheck…"

~0~0~

Travel was hell on his sinuses, as was going to new places. Even through the familiar misery of an ever irritated nose, he couldn't help but stop and stare in wonder at the massive coverstone on display in the room he'd been led to. "How old is this?"

"Approximately ten thousand years, give or take a few centuries." Dr. Langford told him, looking amused at his wondering gaze.

"Wow…" Stepping closer, he traced an imaginary line along the hieroglyphs and symbols ringing around the center. "Why doesn't anyone know about this? I mean - something this old would be huge in the scientific community."

"That's because it was dug up in Giza back in the 1928, brought back to the country, and left in a government basement until several years ago."

"Really? How come?" He looked to the older woman, blinking in surprise, before being briefly distracted with the whiteboard containing copies of the inner ring's writings, frowning as he mentally translated them himself. "Hold on, those are wrong-"

Against protest from one of the other archaeologists, he started mumbling about faulty textbooks while rewriting the translations. "A thousand years into the sky is Ra, the sun god, sealed and buried for all time." He crossed out 'Doorway to Heaven' on the last line, writing next to it instead, "Stargate."

"So," He asked as he stepped back, looking to the small crowd that had gathered. "Why is the military interested in old Egyptian writings?"

"It's not the coverstone, it's what was found with it." Dr. Langford gestured to the side of the room, where the large fossils were displayed.

Once again, Daniel found himself awed, quickly making his way over to it and examining it closely. "Incredible, I've never seen fossils anything like this. Why hasn't anyone else found something like this yet?"

The people in the room glanced between each other, before one of the younger officers asked Dr. Langford, "Do you want to show him, or should I?"

"I think I'd like to enjoy his surprise firsthand, but thank you, Colonel."

"Show me what?" Daniel asked, cycling back to confusion as Catherine turned back to him with a smile.

"You'll see," was the only reply she offered, leaving him rather concerned as he was led down several bustling halls to a computer room with several dozen people hard at work and ignoring their presence.

That, however, was not what caught his attention. For on the other side of the blast window was the most geometrically perfect ring he had ever seen, surrounded by metal and wiring and held up by six strong clasps.

"What is that?" He asked, wondering how many times he was going to be asking that question over the next few days.

"That," Dr. Langford replied. "is your Stargate, Dr. Jackson."

His gaze followed the outer track, eyes widening as he recognized the same symbols as those that rings the coverstone in the other room. "It matches the coverstone exactly…"

"Excuse me?"

He turned to the older woman, waving a hand. "The symbols on the outside of the ring, they match the ones on the outside ring of the coverstone."

Her brow furrowed. "The symbols don't match up at all. It's one of the things that has been puzzling the team for years."

"No, I'm pretty sure they match, though I'd need a copy of the coverstone to be completely certain." Daniel frowned as well, certain he wasn't being pranked but unable to explain how they could see different things.

"We have a copy of the symbols on both if you want to compare them." Dr. Landford turned to one of the other people in the room, gesturing for him to go get said copies. Within a few minutes the man was back with two rolled up sheets, which were quickly spread out next to each other.

Daniel frowned more, looking over the Stargate copy with a frown. "Yeah, this isn't what I'm seeing at all. I'm seeing these-" He pointed to the copy of the coverstone's symbols. "Around that."

"But… that's impossible, unless…" The older woman frowned. "Can someone bring Captain Carter and Dr. McKay here please?"

Several minutes later had all four of them pouring over the two sheets, Daniel matching each coverstone symbol to the Ring symbols everyone else saw. Dr. McKay shook his head, leaning back. "This is impossible; he has to be joking. Someone would have noticed before now if people could see different symbols on the Ring."

"No, it's possible." Samantha countered. "It's not like many of us were actually trying to compare what we saw, because we all assumed we were seeing the same thing."

"That still doesn't explain why the Ring would do that; in order for us to see different things would mean the symbols are projected individually into a person's brain-" Rodney stopped, eyes widening. "Wait, there was that one room in Heliopolis that had that chair that almost no one could activate."

"Until Colonel O'Neill sat down and it instantly lit up, giving us access to other parts of the complex that were still working." The captain sat up, understanding dawning in her expression at the same time as Rodney's.

"It reacted to something in his genetics, but it worked by mental command." He looked back to the sheets. "What if the Ring was designed the same way?"

"But why would they do that?" Samantha frowned, looking over the sheets again. "It seems like a waste unless it was for some purpose-"

"Constellations." The two blinked and turned to Daniel, along with everyone else in the room who had been silently listening in. "I just recognized a few of them - the ancient Egyptians sometimes used them when describing the timing of certain events like comets or the deaths of rulers. It isn't brought up much because the constellations have changed since then, and we have an entirely different set of constellations to what they used back then anyways."

Samantha clapped her hands together. "That's why there's seven symbols - it's a coordinate system in three dimensional space using references most people would be familiar with on any given world. Six to locate the gate in an area of space, and one for the point of origin. "

"Then why don't we see our constellations on the Ring?" Rodney shot back, though he was looking thoughtful as well. "No, wait, all of us were given the photos and sketches of the Ring well before we saw it, so that's what we expected to see. And because they matched the Archive addresses, we never thought to question what we were seeing."

"I bet if we looked now we'd start to see our constellations instead because we know about the coordinate system now." Samantha nodded, not turning to look just yet. "I think what we were seeing before was the original constellations from when the Ancients who made the Gate were using it to travel around the galaxy. Those must have been engraved into the Rings in case the telepathic feature broke so that they could still use the system, which is why they're what shows up in all the photos we've taken."

"Yeah, you're right." Rodney looked past her to the Ring. "They're a bit off, but I recognize Orion, Leo, and Cygnus near the top there."

Samantha turned to look, as well as almost everyone else. "Yeah, I'm seeing it too, but I also see the original symbols underneath it? My brain's trying to see two things at the same time."

"That's crazy," Rodney sat back, boggled. "How many other features does the Ring have we know nothing about?"

"I have no idea, but we should definitely have the translation work on that information put to a higher priority." She paused, just remembering something. "Wait, that means we can just convert the original symbols to our constellations and we'll be able to pinpoint where Heliopolis is in our sky, and with Dr. Jackson's help we can translate the address on the coverstone and finally figure out who was in contact with the Ancient Egyptians ten thousand years ago."

Daniel blinked when their attention returned to him. "I'd love to help, but…" He looked between them. "Heliopolis?"

Samantha and Rodney exchanged glances. Dr. Langford, who had remained quiet, shook her head in quiet awe at what had just transpired. "I suppose there's still quite a lot to catch you up on, Dr. Jackson. I hope you're ready for a long explanation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we get into the events of the movie, hoorah! And finally Daniel makes his debut as well. Of course, as always, in the middle of my research I find out some very concerning things, like how even though the Gates were made millions of years before the story, they somehow use modern western constellations.
> 
> Let me tell you, I spend two hours debating with a friend over how to solve that plot hole without causing others, and eventually managed to settle on the Gate having a minor form of telepathy which has everyone seeing what they expect to see for the symbols. Since most of the base had seen the footage or the images of the Gate from older pictures first, they saw the same symbols, but because Daniel saw the coverstone first, he saw those instead.
> 
> So yeah, there's my explanation on why the Ring has modern western constellations despite being millions of years old with no one questioning it, and also how they didn't match the coverstone symbols with the ring symbols before then. Does it all make sense? I really hope it does…
> 
> (On a final note, poor Jack…)


	11. Abydos: Only Option

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Colonel O'Niell out of commission for mental health reasons, somebody has to stand up and agree to lead the Giza Expedition...

Alfred's mouth was pressed into a thin line, his expression matching the atmosphere of the rest of the room as the news they'd just recently received sank in.

"We can't bring him back into active duty right now," Matthew eventually started, looking around at the other high ranking officials. "With his current mental state he's more likely to take risks we can't afford, which might jeopardize the lives of the people and the mission itself."

General Clements nodded. "What Colonel O'Neill needs right now is time to recover and a military psychologist to keep him from doing anything rash."

General West frowned. "That still means we have no one qualified at this time to lead the mission to the new world. The amount of time and paperwork it would take to transfer someone else in and bring them up to speed would set us back at least a month in operations."

"Is there anyone we could promote?" The Canadian personification asked. "There has to be someone who's ready for the position."

"No one who could lead a mission like this," General West shook his head.

Alfred, who had remained thoughtfully quiet all this time, finally stepped into the conversation. "I'll lead it."

All conversation dropped, heads turning to face the young American. He continued, looking more certain of himself. "I've been part of this program longer than almost anyone else still alive besides Dr. Langford. All the people here know me and trust me already, and I am more than capable of leading a mission of this scope-"

"Out of the question. We have no idea what would happen to someone of your nature should you travel through the Stargate, and if something happened on the other side we have no clue what could happen to you."

Alfred frowned, matching the General's own. "I know my connection holds just fine with people even with the immense distances - that's how I knew Dr. Littlefield was still alive once I checked. And there's no reason to think my capabilities as a Nation will be affected by distance - we've fought wars and been killed on foreign soils for hundreds and thousands of years without any issues, and this shouldn't be any different because it's a bit further away-"

"A  _bit_?" Matthew interrupted, incredulous. "We're talking hundreds of lightyears, Alfred! And it was just one person that far away out of millions; none of us have ever been out of Earth's atmosphere-"

"I have." Alfred looked to the others. "Only a few times, but I've gone with Tony into Earth orbit and I've been fine. If I remember correctly everyone said the same thing about airplanes before they became a common form of transportation."

"This is still a whole degree of difference from all of those, though." The Canadian Nation shook his head. "And we just can't know how it'll affect you."

Alfred threw his arms out helplessly. "My country and people are healthy, and I'm going to have my own people and yours with me when I go there. I'm willing to take the risk - I  _want_  to take the risk. What if for some reason we need to abandon the base and retreat through the Stargate? We need to know how travelling through and past it will affect us, and there's no better time than now."

"And what if it does?" General West intervened. "What will happen if you get killed going through it?"

"At worst, I'll be replaced." Alfred's shrug made his brother's posture tense, and he could already hear the rant about his self-preservation instincts on his lips. "But you have to consider, I am a literal personification of the concept of America. There's no reason to think that I wouldn't be just as strong on the other side of the universe as I am here on Earth, because the idea of me wouldn't change at all."

"We have no reason to think you would be, either." His lips were pressed together. "Even if we wanted to, sending you through would require permission from the President."

"I'll talk to him, too. Right now, you guys don't have any other options that won't cost us time and trouble. I've made my offer, it's up to you and the boss to decide if you're gonna take it."

And there really wasn't anything left for him to say after that, was there? Alfred stood from his seat and left, not even surprised to hear a hasty set of footsteps soon come after him. Matthew pulled him to the side, looking angry enough to potentially give another of his famous hour-long rants.

"What the hell are you thinking, Al?" The Canadian snapped out, eyes ablaze.

"We don't have any other options right now, Matt, you know that."

"You could die! For good!" And that was the crux of the problem. The fire in Matthew's gaze started to dampen. "I'm not going to lose my brother to his own overconfidence."

Alfred's gaze softened. "I'm not going to die, promise."

"You can't promise that."

The southern Nation pulled his brother into a hug. "I'm not gonna let something that dumb kill me, kay? I really want to do this, and not just to see if it's safe."

Matthew pulled back enough to look at his brother as the American continued, "I've wanted to go to other worlds for ages now, even before Neil and Buzz and NASA and the Space Race. This might be my only chance, even if my boss allows it this time, I can't say whether I'll ever have a chance again."

The Canadian was silent for a long while, his wet chuckles eventually breaking the tension. "God, you're such a weirdo."

Alfred laughed as well, ruffling his brother's hair to mild protests. "Nah, just a space nerd with a taste for adventure."

Matthew was smiling now, small as it was. "Fine, I'll let you have you fun, if you swear you'll come back alive. I don't want to deal with training up your replacement."

"And everyone thinks you're the responsible one?" The older brother teased. "But it'll be fine; the first thing we're gonna do is figure out the address back, and if anything goes wrong we'll be able to come back through the Ring then."

"You'd better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter is basically my reasoning to get Alfred onto Abydos instead of Jack. Because first off, why would you send a guy who just lost his son and his wife on a dangerous mission? That seems like a bad idea for so many reasons I can't even begin to describe. Second, I want a good reason to have interactions with my Abydos!OC which only makes sense with another Nation involved. Thirdly, I want to establish the range and limits of what Nations can do involving the Stargate for reasons down the line.
> 
> And lastly, I just want Alfred kicking butt and being awesome on Abydos. Just plain and simple. I am a simple person with simple needs sometimes.
> 
> I should mention, if it wasn't already obvious, the timeline for my Abydos will be different from the movie, so yeah, I hope you'll all enjoy the new variant of the story! I know I'll be having fun writing it.
> 
> Edit: The question was rhetorical, alright? I KNOW why they sent Jack in the movie, JFC, I don't need everyone to tell me something I already know. I was just SAYING that in a genuine military operation that was planned to stay longterm his mindset would bethe LAST thing desired onboard. That's all. JFC people


	12. Abydos: Passing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Travelling to alien worlds requires a lot of forethought and careful planning. Thankfully, there are enough level heads in the Stargate Program to cover most of their bases.

[January 1994]

When Daniel had been told to get changed into his new mission uniform, he definitely hadn't been expecting the military equivalent of a hazmat suit, abel much less unwieldy. It currently bore a muted gray patterning, but apparently it would darken or lighten based on the heat of the environment, a feature already in the making on Earth even before the sudden access to an entire alien database.

(His time on Heliopolis, though brief, had been extremely interesting. Between the closer examination of the alien language and the prank left squeaking in his bed, he wasn't sure whether to be thankful or forlorn over being dragged away to what was more his official specialty.)

In addition, the bulky helmet had been replaced with a pair of heavy duty goggles (thankfully with the corrective glass in them in his case) and a facemask that was probably solid enough to even keep him from needing antihistamines for the trip. Not that he wasn't bringing them just in case (they had to remove the masks to eat sometime, and he definitely didn't want to take the risk if he could avoid it), but it was a nice gesture all the same.

He'd also gotten time to get to know the person leading this mission through to whatever was beyond the pseudo-Egyptian corridors on the other side of the Stargate. Colonel Jones was strange, to be certain, seeming to shift between a full military persona to a simple man who loved archaeology and astronomy as much as humanly possible. He'd admitted to being absolutely ashamed at not catching what Daniel had earlier, and had even asked for a refresher on the texts Daniel had learned, something the archaeologist was more than alright with providing.

Speaking of which, where was the Colonel? He'd been standing here with the soldiers and other scientists going through on the first wave for a while now...

As if the thought had summoned him, the young-looking officer and Dr. Langford both came in, causing everyone to straighten up and give them their attention. With the slightest hint of a grin the Colonel directed them all to stand up. "Alright, you all have already seen what the MALP has to offer, as well as what we can guess about what's on the other side. The suits you're wearing will hopefully make First Contact with whatever beings are on the other side much less tragic for both parties, while still being capable of providing protection if things go sour and we need to retreat. Before we head into the Gate room to prepare for the mission, Dr. Langford has a few words to share."

"Thank you, Colonel." She smiled, turning back to the room. "First, I would like to thank all of you for everything you've done so far and everything you will continue to do for as long as you continue to be part of this project. As it stands, by the time most of you return I will probably be gone."

At the startled looks between the scientists, the corners of her eyes crinkled. "This mission is the culmination of my father's life's work, and mine as well. But with my fiance home at last and the Stargate Program well on its way, I feel that it's time for me to step down and let younger minds take charge. I thank you all for your support and kindness, and wish you all good luck in your future endeavors."

With that Dr. Langford stepped back, allowing Jones to take the stage again. "We'll all definitely miss you, Dr., and it's a shame we'll be missing the retirement party, but hopefully you'll be able to enjoy your retirement in peace."

The Colonel turned back to the rest of the room. "Still, we have a mission we have to get to, so if you want to say your goodbyes do it now, then get down to the Gate room and await further orders."

Daniel held back until almost everyone else had finished speaking to the elderly archaeologist, catching her attention with a sheepish smile. "It's a shame we didn't have more of a chance to work together, Dr. Langford; I really enjoyed learning about all of this from you."

She snorted in amusement. "You picked up on half of it on your own before I said a thing, don't flatter me too much. And I thought I told you to call me Catherine?"

"Sorry, Catherine," Daniel apologized. "Still, you aren't going to stick around for the mission results?"

"It'll take a while for the paperworks to go through; I'm not leaving right away." Catherine looked thoughtful for a moment, eventually nodding her head slightly and pulling something from around her neck and handing it to the younger man. "I want you to have this; I've had it since I was a little girl, but I feel this is something that belongs back where it came from."

"I-" And what could Daniel say to that, especially for such a gorgeous amulet that proudly depicted the Eye of Ra? "Thank you, I'll keep it safe."

"You'd better keep it safe, Daniel - I didn't hold onto it for sixty-odd years just for you to lose it in a week or two."

Despite himself he laughed, grinning as he shook her hand. "I'll do my best then."

It slipped easily around his own neck, tucking neatly under the collar of his suit as he joined the rest of the team in front of the Ring. With a nod of greeting, the Colonel turned to the dialing room, signaling to them before turning back to his team.

"The first thing we're doing on the other side is securing the building we're going to emerge into. I expect a complete report of all exits and corridors to the place within twenty-four hours of arrival, as well as key defensible points and fallback routes. From there we'll have teams explore around the building and, if no contact has been made with whatever locals are there, a team will eventually be put together to look for the nearest settlement or ruins."

Jones grinned. "If we run into them early, however, I expect everyone to be on their best behavior. This is First Contact we're talking about, after all, and I for one want it to go well. The address is about to be dialed, so everyone put your face masks and goggles on now so that we're ready by the time the wormhole settles."

Daniel removed his glasses and tucked them away into a side pocket, the goggles and face mask heavy on his face. The rumbling of the Ring as it moved was still a sight to see, along with the beautiful (and deadly) bellowing of energy before it was sucked back into the gentle rippling pool of light.

The Colonel turned back to them, his eyes glittering with suppressed excitement as he gave the order. "Alright, men, let's get going."

Everyone else started going through in groups of three or four, eventually leaving just Jones and Daniel still on Earth. Jones gave him an amused look when he ran his hand over the pool briefly, eventually nudging him through before following-

_**-dissolution speeding stars shooting past twisting falling on and on and on-** _

and emerging on the other side uncomfortably cold before the chill of not-space melted away into a muffled heat that felt very reminiscent of the digs back in Egypt, especially with the pyramid-like chamber around them. Daniel took a moment to look around, not noticing the Colonel stumble briefly beside him before straightening up like nothing had happened.

The sound of a radio crackling startled him out of his rapture briefly, causing him to turn as the Colonel responded to the inquiry of everyone's safe arrival with a brief, "Everyone's alright, no surprises waiting for us on the other side. We're exploring and setting up shop right now, will update with a more complete report in a few hours."

The wormhole closed, and Daniel briefly thought he saw Jone's eyes tense before he relaxed and turned to him, asking if he wanted to join the rest of the team now to see if there was any clue for the address back to Earth. The archaeologist shook his head and dismissed what he'd seen, more focused on what was waiting for them ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww yeah finally getting into things! Hopefully my OC will come out a solid character to everyone when she shows up, as I want to make use of her in future events on Abydos as well. I should say, even before I introduce her, there will be no pairings of any sort in this story, excepting MAYBE a little bit of hinted Jack/Sam way way down the line. But this story has always been about the adventure, not the shipping, and I intend to keep it that way.
> 
> ...Alright, now that I've teased you all enough, there will also be Daniel/Sha're, because that's canon, and who am I to resist keeping another awesome female character around for amazing shenanigans? Still, romance will not be a huge part of this story, so most of that will be in the background.
> 
> Finally, since I got into my whole constellation headcanon thing, Heliopolis is in the Boötes constellation, Abydos is in the Fornax constellation. Unfortunately, this means the two are in almost completely opposite directions from each other in this story. Oh well. I'll list other star names and their constellations from here on out as I visit the various 'canon' worlds or come up with new ones.


	13. Abydos: Not In Kansas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred F Jones is livin' the dream life... no, seriously, he is.

He was on another world.

He, Alfred F. Jones, the personification of the United States of America, was on another planet hundreds of lightyears from home.

And it. was.  _Awesome._

Okay, so that whole issue with the stretch hadn't been completely unfounded, but it was more a dull ache than genuinely painful at the moment, and was already fading a bit as his body adapted. The important thing was that he wasn't dead or injured or in pain, which was what he had been hoping for but not completely counting on.

He laughed quietly enough so that his team didn't hear him, and with the mask and goggles covering his face they couldn't see his relieved amusement either. It'd only been a few hours by his internal clock's reckoning, but they'd managed to set up some temporary defenses around the Gate room and gotten a good layout of the immediate tunnels around them, not to mention the exit to the outside.

Apparently the similarities with Egypt didn't end inside the pyramid - the patrol's brief scan of outside before they retreated from the midday heat found a rough path leading up from the pyramid and over a dune into the desert, with dunes surrounding the place on almost all other sides that could be seen.

Clearly when he reported in he'd need to ask for extra water to be shipped through so that they didn't dehydrate. Perhaps it could even be used to trade if the aliens proved friendly and amiable to such a deal? God, he hoped this all went well…

Speaking of which, it was starting to get dark outside, which meant it was cool enough for a more thorough patrol around the perimeter before they came back inside for the night. Alfred wanted desperately to be in one of them, but that had to wait until after the initial patrols reported in to him. At the least, he'd have a nice view of the night sky of this world before they retreated inside for the night.

"Colonel Jones?" Daniel asked, distracted him from his musings.

"Dr. Jackson, you have a report?" He asked, focusing on the young archaeologist.

Daniel grimaced, not a good sign by any stretch of the imagination. "We've finished going through all the rooms we can find, but even with the writings we can find, there's nothing that looks like an address of any kind."

Alfred sighed, rubbing at his hair. "Do any of the writings say where we can find it, then?"

The brunet shrugged. "We've only just started rough translating it - it's close enough to the Ancient Egyptian language on the coverstone that we haven't had too much trouble, but there's nothing indicating it so far."

Damn. Hopefully Mattie wouldn't be too angry with him.

"Friend, colonel?"

Alfred flushed. "Ah, dangit, did I say that out loud?"

Daniel looked rather amused. "You did."

The Nation chuckled. "Matt's my brother. You know Colonel Williams?"

"-that's why you two look so alike. I mixed him up with you once, I think. Twins?"

Alfred laughed. "Don't worry, everyone's done that at this point. And yeah, I promised him I'd stay out of trouble, because apparently he doesn't trust me to not keep myself under control when left alone for too long."

"Even in the military?"

"Especially in the military." Alfred gave a forlorn sigh. "He just doesn't trust me at all. It's awful."

"I'm sure it's completely unfounded," Daniel agreed much too sympathetically to be entirely honest.

"Of course you do." Alfred snorted, before an idea came to mind. "Hey, you think the natives might know the address?"

Daniel's amusement washed away into thoughtfulness. "That's a possibility, especially if they still use their Stargate. Of course, they might not all know it since it's been so long since we've been in contact with them."

"Still, with no evidence of an address system here, they'll be our best bet, especially since we'll need their constellation system to give us the right symbols to look at for dialing home."

The archaeologist quirked a smile. "So I'm guessing First Contact's been moved up in priority then?"

"Seems that way."

"Sir," One of the soldiers who had been on patrol - Private Alex Danson, wasn't it? Canadian for sure - approached, nodding respectfully to Daniel before turning to Alfred. "The first sweep of the perimeter has found no visible signs of civilization aside from the path within view of the top of the dunes immediately surrounding the pyramid."

Alfred nodded. "Did you see any other signs of life?"

"Some small shrubs, a few small animals, but nothing larger than a rat from what we could see."

"Right," The Nation thought. "Well we're already ordering in more water rations before we go anywhere away from base, but if there's no one within sight, we might need some form of transport. Anything else to report?"

Private Danson hesitated. "This planet apparently has three moons, sir."

There was a long stretch of silence. "You have got to me kidding me."

"No, sir, you can see them plain as can be right now."

Sending a glance to Daniel, who looked equally curious, the three made their way outside, Alex directing his attention to the sky behind the pyramid once the celestial objects were visible.

Alfred whistled. "Well, we definitely aren't in Kansas anymore. How fast can we get some images to sent through to command? Give the physicists something to figure out for a while."

"Right away, sir."

After the soldier left, Alfred turned back to Daniel. "We should check in with the rest of the translation team to see what progress they've made before command asks for a report. We won't be able to go looking for aliens until we obtain long-distance transport anyways, so we might as well make progress somewhere."

It was also because the night's chill was starting to become pronounced, the sun's heat already evaporated into the darkness, but the Nation wouldn't admit to that. The short walk back inside caught Alfred up to everything Daniel had been able to glean so far, which was mostly a brief section praising Ra and a few other gods.

"They must have interacted for hundreds of years for their belief systems to bleed into each other," Daniel enthused, waving arms and almost hitting Alfred in the process. "Can you imagine what life must have been like then? A trade alliance between two planets, exchanging goods, ideas, possibly even people."

"Makes you wonder where the other aliens are, then." Alfred mused, more to himself, but Daniel stopped, thoughtful again.

"Maybe the aliens brought their dead back to this world for burial? Or if they weren't found, perhaps we just haven't looked in the right places yet?"

Alfred nodded thoughtfully. "That'd make sense. Something else to ask, right?"

"Definitely."

They reached the room with the rest of the science team, one of them - Dr. Abigail Sutters, one of his - looking up and waving as they entered. "Colonel, Dr. Jackson."

"Dr. Sutters. Got anything for us before we report to command?"

She nodded, shaking some dust out of her hair. "We've got this part of the wall down for an initial translation. Apparently this is some sort of story about a war between the gods, which Ra won, making him the leader."

"A war?" Daniel frowned, going over to look at the papers and the writings. "I don't remember anything like that in Egyptian mythology."

"There isn't, as far as any of us remember either. We could ask the folks back on Earth to look for any references, but until they get back to us we have to go with what we know."

Alfred frowned, nodding. "I'll ask command to get some people on it. How much more do you think you can get done over the next couple of days?"

"Depends, sir. This room can be finished within about three days if we just go for rough translations, another week from there if you want 'em refined. The other room should take about the same amount of time, along with any others we stumble across."

"Then try to get this room done before we set out to look for any sign of civilization. I might be taking a member of the team or two along to provide some friendlier faces."

She made a face but nodded. "I think we can manage that, Colonel."

"Good. Dr. Jackson, I'll let you get back to work. I need to write up a report before command checks in in about twenty minutes."

"Good luck with that report, and your brother." Daniel looked all too amused at that last aside.

Alfred made a face. "Don't remind me, please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alfred's just about as excited as I am about all this, tbh. Fucking space cowboy, he's like Kirk except I can't see him as nearly as much of a playboy tbh. He'd be too busy being excited over new planets and new aliens and new everything to really think about that kinda stuff in my opinion. Ehehe…
> 
> [Alex is 2p!Canada btw, while Abigail is 2p!NyoAmerica. They'll be recurring features in this story along with the other 2p / Nyo / 2pNyo characters. Possibly including non-Ame or -Can ones.]
> 
> I think I'm going to introduce Sha're and Abydos from their own points of view as they become relevant so that it's not just switching between Al and Daniel the entire time. Though I love them in all their nerdiness, the girls need screentime for reals yo. That should start in the next chapter or two I think? Also, I need POVs of the folks back on Earth, so that's like… six people, maybe more. Hrrm.


	14. Interlude: General WO West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We take a brief break from our main characters to get some insight into the man in charge of the program.

Major General Wallace Oliver West was born into the military lifestyle. His father, William, had been a veteran of the second World War; his mother, Jeanne, had been a nurse he'd met in France and brought back to the States after his time in Europe and left behind to look after Wallace during the War. As such, Wallace had all but grown up on one military base or another, learning how to salute even before he knew his alphabet.

There weren't many other kids his age around the base for any long stretch of time; families moved with their husbands as they were reassigned, so families like his, which stayed at one base for the duration of the war, were rather rare. Thus, most of his time was spent with his mother or the military personnel who weren't busy with some vital assignment at the time.

When he was six, the war was won, and his father returned home. The first thing the man had done upon entering their living room was take notice of the boy playing with plastic soldiers in the corner, giving Wallace a tired smile when he looked up from his game long enough to recognize the person in the photographs on the mantle his mother would sometimes look at and sigh over. Their gazes locked, a generation of experience separating them instead of a few feet.

Soon, William turned and left, heading further into the house and leaving Wallace on his own again. It was his first genuine memory of the man, and the most memorable. He would disappear again a few years later for some place called 'Korea', coming back and retiring afterwards. It would take decades for Wallace to understand why.

Wallace joined the Air Force right out of high school. He had briefly considered more civilian pursuits, but found none of them to have the same sense of satisfaction as the idea of serving his country as his father had for two wars at that point. During training he met the two best men he could ever hope to know, George Hammond and Jacob Carter, all three of them graduating in the same class and being shipped on the same plane to Vietnam almost as soon as they'd finished the ceremony.

Vietnam was the opposite of everything he'd ever thought about war. There were no heroics, no glorious fights of liberation, just mud and jungles and bombs and enemy soldiers who didn't know when to give up. War was ugly, and naivety was not allowed to survive long in the damp, clinging heat.

Wallace's main regret in the war was not following George in a rescue mission after Jacob's plane was shot down. He'd been hard-pressed to believe his friend would survive long enough for a successful rescue, and hadn't wanted to be disappointed with another lost friend. He honestly had been preparing himself for saying goodbye to one or both of them, only to be as shocked as the rest of the men in their wing when everyone, including Jacob, returned alive late that evening.

There was always a small rift between them after that, even after they returned from Vietnam, but that didn't keep any of them from advancing through the ranks, promotion after promotion until they were all wearing stars. George and Jacob started families, while Wallace remained single, tirelessly working to help his country make up for their humiliations.

He met America in 1981. His single star was still brand new, a heavy weight that if anything served to make him more determined to serve his country well. When he was called in to speak to the Chief of Staff about his new assignment, he hadn't thought anything of it until he'd realized there were three people, not just one, waiting for him.

The first man he noticed was the President, causing him to pause long enough until General Dugan called him in. He stood before the trio, wondering who the young man in military garb was and why he and the President were present for a simple reassignment.

"General West," Dugan greeted. "Congratulations on your promotion."

"Thank you, sir." Wallace wisely did not ask any of the questions on the tip of his tongue, no matter what part of him wanted to.

The President had the smallest hint of a smile on his lips. "I assure you, there's been nothing but positive reports of your service so far, excepting the recruits who seem to feel you're something of a hardass."

Wallace barely kept from cracking a grin at that. "Military life isn't easy, sir, and I'm not going to take blame for their foolishness down the line if they don't learn the right way to do things the first time around."

"And a damned good poker face, as well," The President continued, looking more amused. "It's also said that you're also one of the best, if not the best, officer in the Air Force at making decisions under pressure."

"I like to think so, sir," Wallace conceded. "I've seen too many missions go wrong because of hasty decisions to consider doing the same."

General Dugan nodded. "That's the sort of person we need in charge of the newly reactivated project we're assigning you to."

The newly minted General accepted the folder he was handed, looking over the information inside with a thoughtfully neutral expression while Dugan told him what they knew of the original Giza Program. Only once he finished did he look back up, gaze sliding to the last person in the room, who had yet to speak.

"And him, sir?"

The President and General exchanged glances before turning back to him. "He's going to be reporting directly to the President on the status of the project. As you'll be working with him for the next few years, we felt it was prudent to introduce you now so there are fewer complications down the line."

The young man stood, coming around to offer a handshake. "It's nice to meet you, General. I'm Alfred F. Jones, though for official business you can call me America."

In the five seconds it took for them to shake hands, any disbelief Wallace might have held was whisked away upon locking gazes for just long enough that same aged look his father had once held, only magnified to an inhuman degree. This was someone who he could believe had seen hundreds of years of war and conflict for his people.

This was the person he had, indirectly, been serving his entire life.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, America."

The grin he was given in reward was enough to tell him he was in for an interesting few years.

And now, more than ten years later, that man was now hundreds of lightyears away, leading a mission to a world locked away ten thousand years ago and potentially on the cusp of danger. And there was no way to rescue any of his team.

General West looked down at the requisition form before him, thinking of another set of reports that were much less innocuous, when Canada walked in with his own report. Wallace could understand why some people could mistake the man for his brother, but he himself had had little trouble telling them apart at a glance. America - Alfred - had an energy in his actions that speech that his brother simply did not have or else held back.

"General," The northern Nation greeted. "Everything's been moved down to the Gate room and is ready for transfer through to the Away team."

"What about the DPVs?" The General asked, setting his paperwork aside.

"We have two ready to go through, with a potential third and fourth on their way here."

Wallace nodded. "If everything is there, then start sending it all through. We'll send the new vehicles in when they arrive."

"Got it." Canada turned to leave.

"Wait," General West closed his eyes and sighed before looked back to the other man. "What are your thoughts on this mission?"

The Nation's lips pressed together in thought before he finally replied, "I think Alfred knows what he's doing, and if anyone can get his team back to Earth, it'll be him."

"And the potential native populace?"

"If anyone can talk them into being at least willing to consider further talks with us, it'll be him."

"And if he can't?"

"He'll get him team out of there alive if he has to play hero to do it." Canada shook his head. "He'd die for his people, if he had to."

General West said nothing for a moment. "He would, wouldn't he?"

The Nation smiled. "I doubt it'll come to that, though; he's better at surviving than a lot of people give him credit for."

The General returned the smile with his own wry one. "I can believe that. Thank you, Canada."

"No problem."

Only when the door clicked shut did the smile fall, his gaze settling back to the first set of documents, containing a record of what could be myths or history as translated by the archaeology team.

If they were myths, what did it say about the culture? Earth had its own bloody mythology and history, and look at where they still were. If it were history…

His hand settled onto his phone, his mind carefully running through all the possible scenarios for this mission. Was his career - was thirty-five years of honorable service and a clear record worth the lives of everyone in this country and this planet? What if nothing went wrong and the last measure wasn't needed? Could he afford to keep it under lock until it was needed, and what would happen if he was caught with it?

What if it was needed?

That was the question, wasn't it? If he didn't use it, he could be in trouble for working with a program outside of the Air Force to get a hold of such extreme defensive measures, and if he did…

Well, that was for history to decide. He picked up the receiver and dialed, looking out his office window to where the Ring sat, glimmering pool rippling as barrels of water were pushed through to a distant world, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up. He might not like the NID, but they were damned efficient at getting things done without causing waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General W. O. West only shows up in the movie, so naturally he doesn't get a lot of character development besides 'paranoid General', so I wanted to dig deeper into what made him such a person and how he can so casually do what he does.
> 
> I'm not saying his actions in the film are in any way right, just in case you're confused. There's a reason he gets replaced with General Hammond for the series, after all, and not just because of the change in media. It still boggles me how he was able to get hold of a freaking NUKE, though, like. What sort of contacts do you need to get a hold of those?
> 
> ...I wonder what I'm gonna do with the General after the Abydos Arc. I mean, after all this work I can't just- get rid of him. Or can I? Hmm… this needs more thought. I've got time, though.


	15. Abydos: This Way Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The personification of Abydos is surprised for the first time in... well, probably millenia.

Soona knew something was coming long before anyone saw the sands on the horizon disturbed by something other than wind or beast. It was a sense she'd developed long ago, a way to aid her people by warning them of the 'gods' coming to visit so they could hide what should not be found. It also let her hide herself from the beings' greedy eyes, keeping them from knowing what prize they'd left here for so long.

She'd been stripped from her home, her world, and many of her people; she would not give up her body and soul to them nearly so easily. It was a shame she could do nothing for her many, many children out among the stars, but they had long stopped being hers, not even the slightest whisper connecting her to those far flung places anymore.

There was only this place now, a single city in the middle of an endless desert, forced to work ceaselessly for a cruel being and his followers lest they end up culled for disobedience. None of her children could imagine a different life - were not allowed to imagine it - but she remembered, oh so long ago, when things had been different.

Not better, perhaps, but different.

Her gaze rested on the brightening horizon, the last of the sister moons slowly lowering herself to rest for the day. Whatever was coming, it would be this day, but she did not move until the first light peeked up over the distant dunes to light the city streets just beginning to stir below her.

Soona walked along the streets like a spirit, the handful of people she passed by not noticing her, as she wanted it. There was only one place she needed to be right now, the man inside just stirring as she stepped through the doorway. Kasuf rose to his feet as he noticed her, seeming to already know her message before she spoke.

"Does he come?" The chief asked.

"Perhaps," She replied, though her lips pressed together thoughtfully for a moment. "I am not sure this time."

The chief frowned. "Who else would come but Ra?"

"I do not know," Soona conceded. "But none the less we should prepare."

"I'll spread the word then, wise one." He was the only one to know fully who and what she was, as all the chiefs before him had and as all the chiefs after him would. It was the only way to be safe anymore.

They tilted their heads to each other in respect, equals in duty if not in age. With that done, she turned and left as easily as she entered, making her way to the gate for the first news to arrive from the mines, which were closer to where Ra always deployed his followers from. Busying herself was not difficult - there was always something for one to do, and everyone had to pull their weight to help the community survive.

In the middle of mending some clothing torn by a startled mastadge, Soona's head lifted to look towards the gate, just visible from her current seat. The young men at the gate were gaping and pointing, and it didn't take her inner sense to tell her something - or someone - was approaching. It had not yet even been a quarter day since her warning, abnormally early for Ra's forces to make it all the way here already.

She set her work aside, wandering down to the gate with the other curious onlookers in time to see the dust plumes that had startled the guards rapidly growing as it approached. For a shuddered heartbeat fear struck her - was there to be another purge? But they had kept up on the tribute this cycle!

No, it was too low to the ground, following the flow of the dunes rather than passing over them. Ra had no such magic, or else found it unnecessary when he could strike as easily from the sky and heavens.

But who was it then? And what was keeping her here when she should be excusing herself?

Soona stepped back when the crowd around her did, allowing the not-ships to come to a halt just inside the gate, several of her people who had been at the mines disembarking first with dazed, awed expressions before the ones controlling it followed. One look was all it took for her to determine that whoever these strangers were, they were not of Ra.

Almost everything about them was covered in that odd pale-patched cloth, closely fitted to each of their forms. Even their hair and faces were mostly covered, though what did show was unnaturally pale, like they'd grown in the darkness.

One of the strangers who had gotten out of the ships pulled something out of a bag beside his seat, bringing it to the cloth covering his mouth and - speaking into it? - while looking around at the people gaping at them. His gaze eventually came to hers and-

She knew. And so did he.

Sonna straightened, not looking away until the other one like her moved on, finishing whatever he was telling to the thing in his hand before putting it away. He glanced back in her direction one last time before Kasuf came forward, greeting the newcomers and inviting them into the city proper. Some of the crowd followed, curiosity too much to sate, but she was not one of them.

She would see them later, when there was more time to speak alone.

That did not stop her mind from wandering, hands going through the motions of mending as she resumed her task of the morning. Whoever that had been with the strangers, they were like her, human-but-not, and after so long without seeing another such being she had believed she was alone, her distant memories of sisters and brothers a whimsical fantasy to combat her loneliness.

That thought made her pause. Was he… from that place? It had been so long since she'd last seen the chappa'ai, longer still since her people on that distant place had sealed themselves away, her daughter left to watch them in her permanent absence. What had changed since those distant days? What sort of people did that man care for? Were there even more like him, either here or there?

' _Patience,_ ' she told herself firmly. ' _You have waited this long to know, another half-day will not hurt you._ '

It was not easy for her, despite a hundred lifetimes' practice; such a sudden change in her life after so long all but demanded her attentions, distracting her from her work. Soona was only lucky most everyone else was distracted as well, wondering who these people were and what it meant for them.

"They serve another god, here to claim us in Ra's place," one man whispered fearfully, to be hushed by his companion.

"No one can defeat Ra," The other man whispered, his gaze quickly darting to the Eye that hid under a shroud when the god was not there, as if it would alert the being it represented to the slight against him. "They must be new followers sent to scout ahead."

A part of her wanted to reassure them, to promise that things would be alright, but even she did not know what these strangers brought with them, and she would not lie just to reassure her people. All she could do was listen to their fears and quiet hopes, and pray that what change they brought with them would not doom her people for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold! Abydos is here, and I hope suitably interesting for you all. I can only imagine a person and Nation who has been through as much as she has is going to have a very interesting perspective on life and on other characters. Though in every perspective Alfred's just a baby of a superpower, ahahahah.
> 
> Let's be honest, I have no clue what the naming convention of the Ancient Egyptians was like, nor do I know anything about Abydos' 'modern' naming conventions, seeing as we only have like a few canon names at most from there. So her 'human' name is also sorta ripped from the actor name for the one unnamed female canon 'character' from Abydos.
> 
> ...did I do an okay job portraying a potential Abydonian culture from their POV? This was a bit of work to try and be respectful, but being American, I'm fairly well aware I can be unintentionally ignorant or dismissive even though I try not to, so yeah. (Also, did you know all the Abydonians are actually white in the series? I didn't know the Ancient Egyptians / pre-Egyptians were white! :O #themoreyouknow)
> 
> (Fun fact: The solar cycle of Abydos is 36 hours instead of 24. What an adjustment to make!)


	16. Abydos: That Sinking Shaking Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting a new culture is all well and good, but the timing could have been better.

Despite the howling of the sandstorm outside the city, Abigail found herself rather relaxed. The natives had thrown together a neat little party in the central courtyard, complete with food and music, and it'd done some wonders for the small group that'd been abruptly cut off from all contact with Command.

Daniel seemed to be enjoying it the most out of all of them, which wasn't too surprising; even she could tell these folk - direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians! - were the living examples of his life's studies. Not that she wasn't taking notes as well, but as she wasn't quite as versed in the language orally, she was content to watch him interact with the natives and stay to the side.

Her gaze slipped to the far side of the fire, where Colonel Jones was attempting - poorly - to speak to the leader. The fact that he knew a dead language at all was surprising, but then again he had been spending some time with Daniel - maybe he'd gotten in a few lessons?

It was a shame none of them were allowed to eat the food here; it smelled rather appetizing, especially after a week of rations and dried fruit. Heck, it was probably even safe if these people were able to eat it, but they just couldn't afford someone getting sick right now, especially with no way to get back to the outpost safely.

The colonel's gaze slipped back to her - no, wait, over her shoulder? Abigail turned in time to see another of the natives approaching, the chief silencing as well as he noticed her approach. Huh, she must be important - his wife, maybe? The others didn't seem to be paying too much attention to her; in fact, they almost glazed over her…

The woman bent over to whisper in the chief's ear, his gaze sharp as he looked from her to the colonel and back before nodding sharply. The colonel started to get to his feet as well, and Abby felt obligated to at least know what he was planning before disappearing. "Colonel?"

"Hm?" His gaze locked to hers, looking way too old for a second before they returned to normal. "Their, ah, oracle wants to talk for a bit; I'm not going too far, and it shouldn't take too long. Make sure Daniel doesn't charm too many of the locals, alright?"

She nodded, grinning at the last order; the archaeologist in question had been chatting rather animatedly with one of the local women for the past few minutes. "Will do, Colonel. Don't let yourself get seduced, no matter how pretty the women."

He sputtered and laughed, waving it off before letting himself be led away from the crowd and into the darkness outside the firelight. The other two soldiers exchanged looks, but didn't move to follow, though the one on the left seemed tempted.

Abigail settled back in her seat, humming to herself as she watched the chief turn to Daniel, gesturing in the direction the duo just went. The archaeologist briefly glanced down the street before answering, the chief seeming to attempt the answer as he turned back to the feast.

Interesting…

She had no time to think on it further, the crowd suddenly going tense and breaking out in a widening ring of hushed conversation when Daniel pulled out a necklace he had apparently been hiding in his jacket until then.

~0~0~

Alfred took the chance, once they were far enough away from the crowds, to look over the alien (of a sort) Nation. She looked a lot like the Egypt he knew - same nose, same eyes, similar build - but with wrinkles and weathered lines he hadn't seen even in the likes of China or Denmark or Turkey.

Was this the grandmother he'd mentioned once, long ago?

She was taking the chance to look him over as well, reminding him that he was still wearing his headgear. Carefully, he pulled his hood back so he could remove the goggles and facemask, allowing her to actually see his face. Neither of them were likely to get sick on their own, and with neither of their groups nearby, there was little risk of something spreading to the other side.

"Alfred F. Jones," He introduced, waving a hand to himself.

She caught on fast. "Soona."

They bowed their heads to each other, his a bit deeper than hers. " _It's nice to meet you,_ " He greeted as well as he could, pulling on everything Daniel was picking up and hoping he didn't sound too dumb. He'd take the time to learn it properly later, but right now he just wanted to avoid playing a game of charades.

Her lips twitched up. " _It is nice to meet you as well._ "

Alfred bounced a bit on his heels, his desire to ask question after question only hampered by his own grasp of the language. " _What land is this called?_ "

Soona smiled. "Abydos.  _You?_ "

"Me? Ah, The United States of America."

"America…" She frowned, trying the name. " _I do not know it._ "

" _It's,_ ah,  _only two hundred years._ "

" _Two hundred?_ " She looked him over. " _You are young._ "

"Why does everyone say that?" Alfred grumbled under his breath, ignoring the soft laugh he got in reply.

" _How is your land?_ " She eventually asked.

"I- hrm…" Alfred thought hard on how to reply, eventually coming up with " _Free. Happy. More- advanced._ "

" _...and Ra?_ " Soona hesitated, looking hopeful.

"Ra?" He frowned. " _What about him?_ "

" _I-_ " They both turned at the sudden commotion from where they'd just left, her face creasing into a frown as she looked past the buildings to whatever was going on. Her gaze snapped back to his, much more serious. " _Do you serve Ra?_ "

"What?  _No, no, I'm_  Protes- I mean,  _I have different faith._ "

" _Your land?_ "

Alfred wondered at the questions. " _Hundreds of different faiths, none of them Ra. Why?_ "

She exhaled, sagging into herself a bit. " _I feared-_ "

" _Feared?_ "

Soona looked back up to him, looking older than before. " _You should all leave, before he comes._ "

" _Before who comes?_ " Alfred asked, suddenly concerned.

"Ra," She replied shortly, dark skin paling. " _He is powerful, and if he finds us, he will kill all of your people, and take us away._ "

Alfred paled. " _He's real?_ "

She let her head hang. " _He will come soon; It is almost time for the offering._ "

The younger Nation shook his head. " _We can't leave. We don't know the way back._ "

" _Through the chappa'ai?_ " She asked; he guessed that was the Stargate.

" _I know that, but- the symbols,_ " He gestured helplessly. " _We don't know the symbols for home._ "

" _The symbols?_ " She frowned. " _...I can help. Follow me._ "

She turned and started marching away, Alfred following right on her heels. He had a sinking feeling that things were about to go horribly wrong around here.

~0~0~

" _Keep Command in the loop; we'll be back in contact as soon as the storm's passed over, over."_

" _Copy that, Colonel. Don't get in trouble with the natives, over."_

" _We'll try our best not to, over."_

Private Alex Danson rubbed at his eyes, waiting for the next check-in scheduled in just a few minutes so that he could trade off command duty to one of the others and get some sleep. Everyone was cooped up inside because of the storm, and though the facemasks kept them from breathing in the sand filtering into the pyramid around them, it still left a few of the team on edge.

They had no way of knowing if someone was approaching the pyramid; heck, an entire squadron could be on top of them before they knew it without the advanced warning, but there was no way he was gonna risk anyone out in the sandstorm itself when it was local night anyways.

Tomorrow morning he'd consider sending out a few people to do a fast sweep if things had calmed down. Maybe if he were lucky, the sand would have cleared out enough to get back in touch with the colonel before-

The pyramid shook, sending him and many others to their knees. ' _Earthquake?_ ' He wondered, holding his gun close anyways. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise; Alex shared glances with the others, who were also holding their guns close as the shaking continued.

He really, really hoped it was just a long earthquake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Daniel / Sha're shippers, here's your bone for now. I might focus on them a bit more later on, but I do want some more time with Soona and Alfred (and also Abby and Alex and Matthew and-)
> 
> Reminder: The Abydonians are very, very, very much black in my 'verse. I refuse to whitewash just because the producers did, and if you don't like a black!Sha're, then begone with you. (Though if you want to make fanart to that end, I would absolutely adore you, no question.)
> 
> Finally, in response to a few reviews I've been thinking over: Yes, I'll consider that with the General (though it'll piss Al off to no end I'm sure), possibly for the Tollan, and yes Sha're will survive… for now. :) Send in more questions though, it makes me think more about the smaller details I tend to miss and ends up helping out in some cases.
> 
> Next time: Alfred's bad feeling pans out, and Alex somehow has to alert Command to the hostile beings attacking their outpost before it's too late.


	17. Abydos: Cry Havok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew finds out that shit has gone terribly, terribly wrong on Abydos, and does something about it.

Matthew was extremely thankful he'd been exempt from his usual paperwork and meeting schedule in order to stay on site while the Giza mission was active; he didn't think he could handle the ceaseless worrying and invasive thoughts of everything that could go wrong if he were back in Ontario right now.

So far, nothing spectacular had happened during the six days since Alfred and the others had gone through the Gate, aside from the previous check in that had let them know a sandstorm had blocked communications between Alfred's forward team and the gate team. Despite the pang of worry this had caused initially, nothing of his strained senses towards his people out there indicated anything serious going on.

He took another deep breath, shutting his eyes and calming himself by focusing inward on his people here on Earth, who for the most part were happy and satisfied. He'd be useless if something went wrong in this state; he had to trust Alfred and the men and women out there to handle themselves, just like his brother would with him.

"Up early, sir?"

Matthew startled, turning to the woman who'd just entered the main control room overlooking the Ring. "Yeah; figured I'd wait for the next check in before getting myself coffee."

"I think you're better off passing for a bit; Dr. McKay's managed to pull another all nighter going over the next data parcel from Heliopolis. Something about the Gate's functions, if I heard his muttering right." She admitted around her own cup.

The Canadian nodded in understanding; the man was well and determined to be the world authority on the workings of the Stargate, especially after the Constellation discovery. He'd managed to peek in at the man's workspace once on his way from the break room - it'd practically looked like an encyclopedia or three had exploded all over the table.

"Duly noted," He nodded, shaking his head and smiling as he looked around at the other people streaming in one by one to take over from the night shift. "I thought you were on afternoon shift."

"Oh, I am," Samantha admitted, grinning. "I'm just taking the chance to go over some interesting data of my own before I have to comm the chairs for eight hours straight."

"From Heliopolis?" He asked.

"Actually, from the Giza world." She laughed quietly. "I've been trying to work out the orbital mechanics of three moons around an Earth-sized body."

"That's right, Al did seem way too amused when he sent those pictures through," Matthew mused, before nodding for her to continue.

"Without knowing the exact distance to them, I can't really tell how accurate any of my numbers are, but from what messing around I've done, the most stable system would have all three be around the size of Pluto or smaller, with each moon's orbit about a third of the way out further than the one before it. It's too bad we don't know if the planet has oceans anywhere, because the effects of high and low tides would be far more impressive than anything on Earth."

The Canadian was impressed. "And you did all that for fun?"

"Yes, sir." Sam admitted without a blush, still smiling. "Before I got assigned to the Giza Project, I'd been hoping to get into NASA and go to space."

"And now?"

She waved her hand at the Ring. "Now, I'm part of the first manned project to send people to other planets hundred of light years away; I'd have to be insane to leave when this is basically the dream job I never imagined could happen."

"It does feel a bit like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it?" Matthew asked rhetorically. "Sometimes I feel like we should all be looking out for the Enterprise appearing over San Francisco, looking for whales."

"Oh my god, don't remind me about that movie," She groaned, pressing a hand to her head in mock pain. "Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but there were so many things wrong with the physics it pains me to think about."

"Don't let Al hear you say that; it was his favorite."

Whatever reply she had was cut off by the overhead announcing the next Gate activation in five minutes, requiring everyone working on fixing the left-back turret stuck on its hinges to pack up most of their equipment and leave until the wormhole had closed; it was a safety precaution due to the low, but constant levels of radiation that streamed through the Ring while it was open.

(Though it seemed air couldn't travel through the wormhole's surface on its own in either direction, any other substance in the air did, including dust, bugs, and an unfortunate Little Hellion; it was a wonder the amount of radiation wasn't higher with the mass to energy conversions involved. Probably another failsafe by the aliens who'd invented it.)

However, his attention didn't return to Samantha, his gaze trying to peer across the immense distances to where he thought he could just feel -

"Sir?"

Matthew's fingers twitched, coming up to rub the edge of his shirt between them. "I just got a bad feeling about something."

"About the mission?"

He bit down on his instinctive 'yes'. "I don't know, but just-" He sighed. "It's probably nothing."

"We'll know in a few minutes, if that helps."

"I guess," Matthew admitted, even as his a small part of his mind kept pinging at him to demand the gate be dialed  _nownownow_  - what if someone was standing in front of the Ring, not expecting an early check in?

Distracted as he was, he didn't see Samantha's frown increase as he continued to stare towards the Stargate, gaze a million miles beyond it.

She wouldn't admit it, but his sudden concern for the mission had gotten her just a bit on edge herself. She didn't believe in things like premonition too much - after all, how often did you hear about someone's bad feelings that didn't pan out? - but his near surety was slowly but surely becoming infectious in the room, causing a few others to start nervously tapping or fussing with their papers as well.

Finishing off the coffee in her cup, Sam gave herself a few seconds to fuss with the paper rim before turning to throw it away, a momentary flash of pleasure distracting her as she managed to toss it right into the bin on her first shot. The atmosphere of the room quickly snapped back, leaving her foot tapping on the floor as she glanced more than once at the clock counting down to check-in.

She glanced back to Colonel Williams, who was probably the only person in the room who at this point  _hadn't_  looked to the time. It suddenly struck her that his brother - his  _twin_  if the rumors were right - was leading the mission over there, leaving him quite a bit more invested in the safety of the away team than even the General.

An idle thought of whether twin bonds might really be a thing and if so how they would even work provided a welcome distraction for the next two minutes to the final warning siren.

"Thirty seconds to Gate activation - clear the room -"

The man at the dialing station seemed far more invested in his job this time around, fingers almost flying across the keys as he input the seven symbols for the supercomputers to process and then send to the motors sliding the symbol part of the Ring.

By the time the final symbol was locked in, everyone had dropped any pretense of not being interested, watching the pool settle into place with an almost eerie finality.

No one dared to take a breath. The radio remained silent for a long fifteen seconds, then-

"Command, I'm reporting hostiles, over."

Samantha's heart sank as the Colonel all but jumped from his seat, leaping for the radio before the woman chairing it could think to reply. "What happened?" He asked, voice quiet but firm.

"We were waiting out the sandstorm inside the pyramid, getting ready for the night watch to take over so the rest of us could get some rest, when an earthquake lasting a few minutes shook everyone awake. A few of us were just settling back down when some sort of teleportation system in the main hall activated, leaving two aliens wearing anubis helmets in the middle of base camp."

There was a pause, then the soldier continued quietly. "They were using some sort of energy blast from their staves to knock us out; our bullets were just bouncing off their armor. Barston got a lucky shot in through a weak spot under their arm; the other hostile shot him twice. ...he was dead before he hit the ground.

"They've captured most of the team; I think they're taking them back to - wherever they teleported from. If you send through reinforcements, make damn sure they have something that can pierce through whatever they're wearing before they can get a shot in on you. I don't think I'll be able to hide long enough to wait out the rest of the storm and inform the Colonel; as far as I know the forward team is still at the native city and safe."

Matthew hit the speak button again. "Private, you make damn sure you don't get killed or captured, do you understand?"

There was another pause before the radio came up again. "I think I can only promise the first one, sir - the Ring's sure gotten their attention at this point. I think one of them is approaching - you can see it with the MALP camera-"

He dropped into silence again, just long enough to hear the furious typing of one of the others as they activated the MALP as fast as they could. Everyone's gaze turned to the camera as it flicked to life, the VCR it was hooked to whirring to life as it recorded everything the machine saw.

And what a sight it was - the being wearing that mask was imposing even through the screen, its red eyes flaring along with the ear frills as it turned from its examination of the pool to the device. It lifted the staff just as the soldier on the other end of the line replied with a final, almost silent, "I'll try to get the rest of the team through this alive if I can, sir, but I don't think I can do it for long."

The colonel swallowed, but nodded as the screen died, the MALP likely blasted to bits, or at least out of commission. "Understood, and godspeed."

"Thank you, sir," came the final reply, before radio silence took over.

Everyone looked to each other, all but forgetting the open Ring - at least, until another energy blast came through, smashing into the cement below the window and sending debris across the floor.

"SHUT THE RING DOWN NOW!" The Colonel shouted as he twirled, the man at the dialing station instantly smacking his hand down on the emergency button, causing the sirens to go off as the wormhole abruptly dissolved into nothing.

No one dared breathe for almost a full minute.

Finally Colonel Williams, lips pressed into a thin line, turned to look at them all. "Emergency stations - this mission just got compromised. Get me an ops team equipped with heavy armor and armor-piercing guns ready in the next ten minutes. I'm going to inform the general."

He twirled on his feet, practically storming out of the room towards the General's quarters, leaving the room behind in a sudden frenzy as everyone scrambled to follow his orders, shouting instructions over the basewide intercom and preparing the Ring room's defensive layers.

Samantha closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, then promptly joined the latter group, praying that that soldier who'd risked himself to report in would make it out of this alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, more Mattie, since we haven't seen him in two whole chapters. It's really sorta disappointing how easily that 'elite' squad of soldiers was taken out by a dude in a jackal helmet, especially with those open shoulders that you could inflict nasty damage with a bullet on at close range. But hey, that's why I'm only sorta following canon with this.
> 
> (On a completely unrelated note, Abydos having three moons? Totes easy. I mean, Pluto has freaking five moons! And it's tiny! So yeah I honestly don't feel in any way bad for geeking out a little through Sam, ehe. If it's not accurate, who even cares because I can come back and correct it when I know the actual maths for it all.)


	18. Abydos: The Tale of Ra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred gets a brief history lesson from Soona, then rushes off to save his people.

"These halls were built shortly after Ra brought my people here for the first time," Soona told her companion, running fingers over carefully preserved (but still time-worn) retellings of her oldest history here. "With the building of the city above, it was easy to hide it from His gaze, allowing a select few to preserve our history for our children."

Alfred, his strange mask back in place - " _To keep your people from getting ill"_  - let his hand-light bring each part of the writings on the walls into view, nodding occasionally as he went along. His fluency in her tongue, though still floundering, was quickly gaining its footing the more he practiced, almost like he was used to learning such things quickly and easily.

' _Hundreds of different faiths, none of them Ra.'_  That was how he'd described his people, something she couldn't imagine fully. How did so many even come to be, much less coexist as harmoniously as he seemed to imply? Just how much had that other world changed since she'd been there?

"What is this?" Alfred asked, looking over one of the larger pictures, this one the beginning of the Tale of Ra. She frowned, remembering back across the years to that day of surprise and fear, the day that everything had changed forever.

"It is the tale of Ra's arrival." Soona replied, stepping close to wall to trace a finger along the story. "His ship came down from the heavens, shining bright as the sun. Most of my people ran, but one was not able to get away in time - he was taken into the light, and for a brief moment I sensed his fear and panic before Ra took his body from him."

"Took his body?" Alfred turned to her, voice choking on his words. "Like a  _parasite_?"

She nodded, not sure if the last word was correct but trusting he was smart enough to understand her story correctly. "The boy he took still walked and breathed, but it was Ra's eyes and voice in his body, commanding us through the chappa'ai to gather the minerals from the mines he so craves."

"You mean he couldn't find the mineral on Earth?"

"No, though I know he searched for it there for a long time. To him, all we were useful for was labor, taking many of my people and others and seeding through throughout the stars to serve on their worlds. It is only through them I know there are others like him, or at least my children feared so. Ra serves as their leader, controlling all with cruelty."

"More of them?" The young man sounded sick. "Nearby?"

"No, far, far away." She shook her head. "Ra would not want the others to find his secret, so he made sure none could come near but him."

He let out a relieved sigh at that, looking back over the tale to where it spoke of the rebellion. "So why did he lose Earth at all, then, if he was so powerful?"

"When Ra did not show for many cycles, my daughter and her people took the chance to rise up and bury the chappa'ai, keeping him from returning that way. Hearing your tale reassures me that he did not try to go back once he returned, though I could not tell you why."

Alfred nodded slowly, silent for a long while as he looked over the walls. "You said he couldn't find this important mineral of his on Earth, right? And that he'd been taking people for a while?"

"Yes to both."

"Maybe he just didn't come back because he didn't have to," He mused after a bit. "After all, if he's as powerful as you say, one planet of slaves without any useful minerals isn't worth the effort if he has hundreds of mineral-rich planets of them elsewhere."

"That sounds likely," Soona conceded, smiling lightly. "I think we should both be glad he never thought much of us, then."

"I definitely am."

" _Colonel?_ " One of Alfred's companions asked, having turned the corner to spot them speaking.

" _Daniel,_ " Alfred replied, gesturing to Sha're while asking about her. Daniel gave him her name before gesturing to Soona, asking the same question.

"Soona," He replied, before prattling on a bit longer, the other nodding in acceptance of whatever explanation he gave while her chief's daughter bowed hastily in respect.

Sha're sidled over to her while the two men spoke further, Alfred appearing to give his companion the same story she had just given him. "Who is that stranger?"

"He is Alfred," Soona replied softly, glancing back to the other two briefly. "And I believe he is like myself."

"Another wise one?" She asked, wide eyed as she looked back to him. "But no one treated him as such!"

"I think he prefers to keep quiet about it," Soona mused. "If only you and your father know, perhaps it is the same for his people as well."

"I guess that makes sense…" Sha're bit her lip, glancing between the two men. "But why would he risk himself to come so far?"

"His world, as he has told me, is free and happy, and has grown in ways we cannot imagine since the chappa'ai was sealed away. I do not think he understands the danger involved, or perhaps he does not care."

"And you did not warn them away?"

"He does not know the symbols to get him home; that is why we were down here, before he became distracted by the Tale of Ra."

Sha're flushed lightly. "The tale is actually why Daniel and I are here as well. He holds the Eye of Ra, but does not understand its significance at all, so I wanted to help him understand."

"He holds it?" Soona's gaze snapped back to Daniel, who was just then showing Alfred the Eye while rubbing the back of his head.

Just then, she felt the tension at the base of her stomach that warned her of Ra just as Alfred tensed, his body swivelling on his heels to stare in the direction of the chappa'ai. Sha're paled in reaction as Daniel looked between them all, his confusion obvious even if she couldn't see his face.

" _Shit._ " Alfred bit out, the sentiment passing across languages as he turned back to them all.

"You have to hide," Soona told him, reaching forward to grab his arm. "You and your people can stay here in the halls until Ra has gone, so that he never knows you were here."

"He already knows," Alfred snapped back quietly so only she could hear. "He attacked my people who were guarding the gate, and one of them is dead."

Soona paled, tightening her grip on his arm. "You must still hide; he will leave eventually once he is sure there is nothing else here to interest him, and then you can go back home."

"I am not leaving my or Mattie's people to that thing!" He growled, Soona resisting the urge to flinch back at the tone of his voice. "You can hide, but I'm going back."

She relented, stepping back while Alfred turned to Daniel, demanding something of him and exhaling sharply at the denial. Shaking his head, Alfred turned and left, leaving the other three in the ruins.

"Where is he going?" Sha're asked the other two.

"Back to the chappa'ai," Soona told her sadly. "He is going to confront Ra."

"He will die if he does that!" The younger woman gasped. "Why?"

"He cares about his people far too much, it seems," Soona's gaze turned outward, towards where she knew the pyramid was. "He would rather die than let his people get hurt."

"His world must be very strange, then."

"More than either of us can imagine," Soona replied, gaze turning to Daniel while she watched through her people's eyes as Alfred rallied the rest of his people together, getting onto their strange landships and leaving through the front gate despite it still being dark. The poor man had slouched into himself after Alfred's words - perhaps he did not want to confront Ra with the others, and was being left behind where it was safe.

At the least, Soona figured, he could learn more of their language and history while he waited here in the halls. Perhaps then he could carry her warning back to his home, and have them rebury the chappa'ai for good.

She frowned slightly as she sensed Skaara, who had been enamored with the newcomers and their strange devices since he'd met them at the mines, sneak into the pens with some of the other young men, hopping onto several of the mastadges and following after their landships.

"Foolish children," She chastised quietly, praying they would not suffer the fate of those before them. Whether the thought was directed to Alfred or her own she couldn't say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but on the other hand we finally get to chat with Sha're for the first time! I really hope you like her – I wanna make her an awesome character to look to occasionally. Next chapter should be, in order: Abigail, Alex, and Skaara. That is, if my plans for the chapter stay the same – who even knows with me sometimes.
> 
> But yeah, more Soona POV! For the sake of plot I'm having Alfred pick up the language fast enough to convey the language fairly, but I still made sure my language use was minimal in complexity hopefully. Also, if you watched the film, I just sort of stared at the scene with Daniel going over the story of Ra and was like 'how the FUCK would these people know all that?' so I just basically changed it to what any Nation (and their people) would be able to figure out.
> 
> Also, what're your thoughts and expectations for the next few chapters? I mean, between Daniel staying behind, Matthew's specialized ops team, and Alfred on a rescue mission, the divergence from the movie is becoming even more strikingly obvious.


	19. Abydos: Make It or Break It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail realizes they're in way over their heads. Alex already knows this, but has a plan anyway.

" _Have you gotten news from the pyramid team yet?"_

" _No sir, but the storm might not be over where they are quite yet-"_

" _Right, we're packing up and moving out. If what the local oracle told me means anything, we arrived at a really bad time."_

Abigail frowned as she watched the city disappear behind a sand dune, the world eerie with its pre-dawn sky lit only by its three moons and the stars that could withstand their light.

Things had just started to settle down after the freakout by the natives at the apparently culturally significant amulet Daniel had gotten from Dr. Langford back on Earth, his hasty explanations in both English and Egyptian enough to settle most of the ruffled feathers. The young archaeologist had soon after been kidnapped by whom Abigail was just able to puzzle out was the chief's daughter based on how the older man spoke to her, leaving just her and the three soldiers who'd been their envoys to those they'd all believed would be aliens but ended up as something far stranger.

Right when they'd been on course to establishing a basic correspondence between their cultures, the Colonel returned in a twitchy, suppressed panic, spooked by what he'd learned from that important old woman far more than ghost stories could account for.

She held her gun a bit closer, shivering in the desert cold despite the relative warmth of her suit. Abigail Sutters did not believe in spooks, but damn was the current situation convincing her to reconsider.

The storm had come from the direction of the pyramid. There was no way there would still be communication troubles if the city team was in the free and clear, and there was no way the gate team would have pulled out without the away team without at least some warning-

" _Daniel's staying behind to pick up more of the native language and obtain the address back to Earth. If something happens to us, he'll at least be able to return and let Command know what happened."_

Abigail took a breath, closed her eyes, and released it slowly. Despite the several attempts since their departure to get in contact with the base, nothing had come back but static, which was enough to get everyone on edge and ready for whatever ambush might be waiting. For a brief second she wanted to be back in the city with Daniel waiting for whatever was here to leave, but dismissed it almost right away. Her pappy didn't raise a damn coward, so even if this was gonna end in a mess she'd be damned if she'd let herself be scared off so easily.

(She had to admit though, the huge  _thing_  looming over where the pyramid was supposed to be was doing a good job of making her second guess her conviction.)

The soldiers around her shuffled in their seats, turning to look at each other with a sort of weary acceptance that they might just be in over their heads.

Colonel Jones was the only one to stay focused on the alien ship, his entire being radiating a simmering determination she didn't realize the mostly laid back guy could manage; then again, he  _was_  in the military, though it was hard to remember sometimes when you were speaking to him.

"I guess Dr. Jackson was right about the pyramids being alien docking pads after all," One of the soldiers muttered, drawing a brief round of tense chuckles from everyone else that failed to actually lighten the mood. None of them wanted to admit to the idea that they were now in well over their heads, because what could their weapons do against beings whose ship stretched almost a mile up into the atmosphere?

"Look, I know things don't look great right now," The colonel spoke up suddenly, turning to glance at them briefly. "But we're all going to get out of this alive, and all of you will be going home to your families, friends, and loved ones before you know it. I swear I'll make sure that happens, alright?"

Abigail wanted nothing more than to believe him and his surprisingly soothing promise, to have faith that this was just another hurdle that could be overcome through manpower, cleverness and perseverance.

(Her pappy didn't raise a fool, though, and only fools and the desperate believed in miracles.

She might have still sent a prayer out, just in case it helped a little.)

~0~0~

Alex shivered at the cold water seeping up his suit, leaning back against a wall to conserve his strength. It wasn't nearly as cold as any of the lakes he'd jumped into as a kid back in Alberta during the long winters, but compared to the desert he and his team had been in for over a week, it was like ice.

The guards hadn't seemed to care that Barston was dead, throwing his body in with the rest of them after taking all of their facemasks. Maybe they were hoping to instill fear or despair or hopelessness with the tactic, but all it did was leave the survivors tired and angry and looking for a way out.

Unfortunately, that only way so far seemed to be above them, guarded by one of those jackal-headed guards. Kawalsky had tried moving along the walls and floor, tapping for any sort of loose panel or grate, but nothing had shifted and at least allowed some of the water to drain.

(Which, in hindsight, was probably for the better - even if they could escape through such a hole, the guard would definitely notice the sound of water flushing itself down a makeshift drain even if he wasn't too inclined to watching them closely.)

"Do you think the colonel is okay?" Brown asked, holding Freeman up to try and keep the guy who was still knocked out from a mix of the energy blast and a physical blow from one of the guards from drowning.

"Probably, at least for now," Alex sighed, running a hand through his hair. "But I don't think he'll be happy when we don't check in, since the storm's probably long over by now."

"At least he'll be able to get in contact with command," Ferretti groaned, sliding down the slick wall until the water was almost to his chin, rubbing at a black-rimmed eye gingerly. (Another obvious thing: energy staves were still staves, or in other words - blunt weapons.)

"Hopefully he'll have the address from the natives too," Alex nodded, glancing up to grate of the cell again. "So that the extraction team can get him and his people out at least."

"Do you think they'll be able to get through that armor those guards are wearing?" Reilly glanced to the body of Barston with a frown.

"I told them to round up the best armor-piercing rounds they could, and also told them about the weak spots under the shoulders." Alex shrugged. "Short of bringing in artillery, it's the best shot they'll have to getting as many people out of this alive as possible."

"Yeah, everyone except us," Porro snapped.

Alex slammed a fist against the wall to cut the other soldier off. "Yeah, we're POWs right now and it sucks, but we were chosen to come here because we're some of the best at dealing with shit that comes our way and completing the mission anyways."

Brown nodded, frowning as he looked between the rest of them. "Not to mention I wouldn't feel right without at least trying to get the civvies out of here. I think I remember part of the path from here to that teleporter pad of theirs, since they didn't knock me out completely."

"Right, and I'm pretty sure I saw one of the archaeologists thrown into a cell a few down from ours," Reilly added. "We're probably all being kept close together so it's easier to keep an eye on us."

Alex nodded, glancing back up to the guard with sudden interest. "Do you think their armor is resistant to their own staves?"

"Probably," Ferretti replied, though his eyes were also picking up the fringes of a plan. "But they still have those weak spots under the shoulder-"

"And any energy weapon they have can probably damage whatever tech these ships run on as well," Alex mused thoughtfully.

Brown shook his head. "I don't think it'd be easy to get any of the armor off of them in time in be useful, which means we'd all get downed in one or two shots and probably killed off for making a break for it."

"Maybe not for all of us, but three should be possible if we're fast enough."

"Danson, you aren't thinking-" Kawalsky started.

"Two of you stay behind with me and draw them away from the prisons, grabbing what armor and weapons we can handle and fucking up as much around here as possible while you three get the civvies out and to the teleporter. If we have the chance we'll try and follow, but it's more important for as many of us as possible to escape."

"We don't even know if that'll work," Porro frowned. "This ship could have a thousand guards to split between us, and we'll all be dead for nothing."

"Unless a better plan shows itself, I don't see what else we can do," Alex shrugged, giving the man a look. "So are you going to sit there and complain or are you going to help me figure out how we're going to get this done?"

The other men glanced between each other, nodding in unison before turning back to him.

"I'll stick with you," Ferretti stood up from his seat, stepping forward to salute. "I can't think of a better guy to go out in a blaze of glory with."

"Same here," Reilly nodded, grinning despite the situation. "It's a dumb plan, but it's better than anything I have, so I'll roll with it for now."

Brown nodded, shifting to keep Freeman from sliding off his back into the water. "If Freeman here wakes up before the plan starts, he can help provide cover fire for the civvies on our way out. Hopefully they'll know to keep their heads low and pace fast."

Alex nodded, grinning as well. By any stretch it was an incredibly stupid plan, but that might just end up being what made it work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorta scooted Skaara to his own chapter because these first two POVs turned out a bit longer than expected. Not to worry, you'll see him (and Sha're! And possibly Kasuf) next chapter, so look forward to that then!
> 
> Anyways, yeah, Alex and Abigail are both sort of trying to get themselves out of this huge mess they accidentally drop themselves into. To be fair, it's not like the could have expected aliens to drop from the sky abruptly, since that's not the sort of thing one expects even when traversing through an ancient alien device to other worlds.
> 
> Final note – I've started labeling arc names for ease of browsing. I don't know how long I'll extend this fic out for so I want to be sure people can easily find the sections they want/need to look through fasterish.


	20. Abydos: Strangers In A Strange Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skaara and his friends believe these strangers might just be able to change everything.

Skaara almost -  _almost_  - turned back the moment he and his friends crested the dune, only to see Ra's ship looming over the desert. He'd been raised like every other child to fear and respect Ra's power, and to never go near the chappa'ai. Aside from a few rebellious ventures as a younger boy, he'd mostly settled into the idea that that was just how things were.

Then the strangers had come.

Their outfits had been so bizarre, and the masks had sent a shiver of fear through him and the others at the mines before the strangers had spoke. Well, sort of, anyways - it was clear only one of them even knew the basics of the language, and even that was fumbling, like a small child.

It was that, more than anything, which first convinced him that whoever these newcomers were, they were not of Ra - no servants of his would ever demean themselves in such a way. Several of the others obviously felt the same, because they started crowding around the masked strangers and their landships with a buzz of interest.

Mahu, the leader of the workers at the mine, shouted them all away, stepping forward himself to examine the newcomers. The newcomers in turn examined him, their own leader stepping forward and bowing his head slightly in respect before offering his hand. After a brief moment of confusion as their leader mimed what he wanted, the two had clasped hands in what seemed to be their own form of greeting.

Skaara, while watching all this, had snuck to the side so as to get a better look at the strangers. Once he was close enough to one of the ones still seated, he realized that, past the glare of the sun, he could see part of the stranger's face through the clear material over the eyes.

The man's eyes were dark, but the skin around them was pale, like he'd grown someplace dark. The stranger's gaze had moved over to him, examining him back before nodding his head slightly and going back to examining the crowd.

Skaara released a breath once the other man's gaze left him, leaving him jittery with what he realized after a few moments was not fear, but excitement. That excitement only grew when one of the other strangers went to the back of one of their ships, cracking open the odd round box to reveal pure, clear water inside. After pulling two cups out from another container, he filled them both and carried them over to Mahu and their leader, another stranger closing the container of water behind them.

Mahu accepted the cup carefully, though he glanced between the two cup leerily, likely worrying this was some sort of trick. When their leader took a breath and pulled up his mask long enough to down the whole cup, Mahu's eyes widened, either at the gesture of comfort or at the pale skin Skaara had only noticed a few moments ago, before glancing back down to his cup and lifting it to his lips.

After the first sip, Mahu finished it off quickly, loudly wondering at how clean it tasted. That sent a ripple of wonder through the crowd, as everyone realized no servant of Ra would ever be so generous to mere slaves.

Their leader laughed, gesturing for the opened water container (only one of what looked to be four of them - and they were giving it away so easily?) to be brought over and placed before them, the leader making gestures and asking something before turning to the child-speaker expectantly.

Slowly, the man asked them what, after a moment of puzzling from the crowd, was determined to be directions to the city in exchange for the barrel. It looked to have enough in it to give almost everyone at the mines a sip, a generous trade when they didn't even have to offer it.

Mahu nodded, turning to Skaara and barking at him and his friends to lead the strangers to the city and not come back until the chief dismissed them. He jumped, ready to run over to the mastadges before he realized their leader was waving the four of them over. The other strangers had already gotten back into their ships, and were… offering them places to sit as well?

Nabeh inhaled sharply when he caught on, though all four of them exchanged wondering looks before moving.

They clambered up into the spots on the landships made available for them, almost bouncing in place as Ahmose and Seti leaned forward to point out the path to the people who seemed to be controlling the ships. The controllers nodded, shifting their leg and pressing on something, and suddenly they were off, the dust behind them billowing up as they quickly made their way down the trail.

Skaara whooped, his friends doing the same as they watched the world go past far faster than even the quickest mastadge could manage for long. He knew the strangers were enjoying their amusement, based on the fragments of soft laughter he was catching, but it was hard to mind when he was riding something so wondrous and new.

It felt like no time had passed before they were at the gates, the four boys stumbling off of the ships with the dazed wonder of the experience. Seeing the chief approach, Ra's Gaze already uncovered, he quickly stepped forward to explain that these strangers were incredible and brought gifts of water and didn't quite speak properly but that was okay because they were amazing-

Kasuf waved him away with a nod of thanks as he turned to the strangers, Skaara and his friends stepping back with the crowd to let the chief lead them past. Most of the crowd drifted after, though a few stayed to look more closely at the landships under the masked watch of the same stranger he'd examined up close earlier. It was amazingly nice of him to allow them to clamber into the seats and feel the soft fabrics and hard materials of it, though he barked at them when they tried examining the barrels.

Clearly, they wanted to present the gifts to the chief first. Skaara grudgingly approved, though he had yet to taste it himself.

The only other thing they weren't allowed to touch was the object the stranger was carrying - after he demonstrated its use by firing it up, most didn't want to try, the noise enough of a deterrent without the sinking feeling that it was actually a weapon.

(They were still different from Ra, even in that respect; the God's followers would have demonstrated its use on the crowd.)

It was upsetting that the strangers did not eat at the feast later that evening; the people were enjoying the water gifted to them enthusiastically, Skaara and his friends all letting it roll in their mouths for a bit before swallowing, careful not to spill a drop.

(He'd seen the strangers take hasty bites of something earlier on, but he'd only been able to sneak away the wrapping it had been in.

The lingering taste of whatever had been in it had him wishing he could try the actual food.)

Even Daniel (the child-speaker - though getting better) revealing he carried the Eye of Ra did not dampen his belief in the strangers, because he'd seen the confusion at the reactions of everyone around them, and so had Sha're - they didn't know, and that was giving him hope that there were places out there Ra had not touched.

That was why, when the strangers left in a near hurry, he knew he had to follow them, just to be sure they would be okay. He was only thankful that his friends agreed to come along as well, because he didn't think he had the courage to approach the pyramid overlooked by Ra's ship on his own.

"Should we go in after them?" Seti asked, looked unenthused at the idea.

"Wait, look at the window over there!" Ahmose pointed to the side of the pyramid that had taken the brunt of the storm, leaving a huge dune covering a good third of it. And indeed, the dune was just the right height to peek through with, as it turned out, a small boost from the others.

Skaara held onto the ledge of the window as he peered in, eyes adjusting to the darker inside before he realized there were more people wearing the same strange outfits as the first strangers, the leader arguing with who might have been the leader of the new group if the raised voices meant anything.

As he couldn't understand anything they were saying, he focused more on the newcomers, their weapons looking far larger and more threatening than the ones the first group of strangers had. Their clothing also looked thicker, possibly enough to absorb the light from the staves of Ra's followers without issue. Maybe that's what it was for?

"What do you see?" Nabeh asked.

"There's a new group of strangers, and their leader is arguing with the leader of the first strangers." Skaara replied, looking down to his friends. "I think these ones are warriors; they've got thicker clothes and larger weapons."

"Warriors?" Seti's eyes widened. "Do you think they're going to fight Ra?"

"No one can fight Ra!" Ahmose automatically replied, before glancing around briefly, lowering his voice as he glanced up at the ship. "...can they?"

"I don't know," Skaara replied truthfully. "We'll find out if they try."

Just as he was about to be let down so that Nabeh could be held up to look, he heard a new noise from further inside the pyramid, drawing his attention back to the groups inside, who had both gone silent and turned to face the direction of the chappa'ai. The two leaders nodded to each other briefly, directing their people to hide behind the pillars before doing the same.

He flinched back and ducked away as he heard the feared footsteps approach the room, not wanting to see what happened next. "One of Ra's followers," He whispered to his friends, all of them shaking as they looked between each other.

Suddenly the pyramid rang with the loud noises of the stranger's weapons, causing all four boys to drop to the sand as they covered their heads. After too short a time the world grew quiet again, and they didn't need to look at each other to know they needed to see what had happened.

Ahmose was pushed up to the window this time, his eyes having to adjust before he gasped, almost falling back into the sand. "They killed the follower!"

"What?" The other three gasped, looking to each other with wide eyes.

"He's fallen to the ground and isn't moving, and the leader of the first strangers is going over to it…" He grew silent, his confused expression growing as he watched on. "They… pressed something, and the head went away. There's a man inside!"

Everyone knew Ra's followers were higher beings, something superior to the mere humans who worked for him. But if that were a lie…

"They're only men," Nabeh whispered. "And if the strangers can defeat them…"

The four exchanged quiet looks, a new blaze growing in them that their people had not fully realized yet. It was similar to the feeling of their childhood excursions, exploring the pyramid despite the lingering fear of being caught.

_Rebellion._

The pyramid above them groaned, drawing all of their gazes upward as several plates slid away, two fast shapes shooting away - skyships. The four exchanged horrified looks before scrambling back down the dune, rushing for their mastadges before pushing them as quickly as possible towards the city.

They knew they would be too late for the attack, but they had to be sure their people would be okay, and to let the chief know about the new strangers and the revelation about Ra's followers.

(And, just possibly, the God himself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! This was meant to be up yesterday, but I got caught up and stuff and didn't finish in time. Not that that's bad, considering I was able to edit a few things this morning I didn't catch last night. And again, I sort of shoved part of the story into another chapter because I got caught up in Skaara's man-crush on the forward team, whoops.
> 
> Aha, I'm still trying to keep things semi-similar to the movie even as I differentiate in lots of other ways. I think this arc should be about... 10 more chapters at most? I'm sort of writing the script as I go along here, so I guess I'll know when you guys do. Hopefully you're all enjoying my character development so far, and I hope to do Sha're and others justice in future chapters.
> 
> (Next time: Infiltration)


	21. Abydos: Not What I Signed Up For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack O'Neill does not want to be here, but what other choice does he have?

Jack O'Neill did not want to be here.

Heck, he probably  _shouldn't_  be here right now, considering he still hadn't made too much progress with his psychiatrist since the Incident and its aftermath, but there was no one else in the know who could be called on fast enough and who had the special ops training needed to extract an away team in a dangerous situation. Even better, he was less likely to ask questions when he was given control of a medium sized case by the General, being told firmly that he would know how to set it off once everyone they could save was out.

(Colonel Williams had made him swear to get his brother out no matter what, hopefully before he tried something stupid like taking on the hostiles singlehandedly. The worst part was that the man hadn't been joking at all.)

And oh, he'd tried! His squad had stepped through with guns up after throwing through a frag grenade, finishing off the two who had been guarding the ring when it'd activated again, dragging the larger case through with them. They'd gotten the drop on the other two who'd been on guard further in, piercing shots tearing through the weak spots in the armor and denting the stronger ones.

And, miracle of miracles, Colonel Jones and his away team had arrived soon after, looking as geared up as Command did as they described the ship and the information they'd gotten from the locals.

What should have happened, after confirming all of the pyramid team had been captured, was for the away team to hand over the coordinates back to Earth, press them into the local Dial Home Device, and get all of these people home before setting off the (yes, he'd checked, and he still couldn't believe it) nuke in order to prevent the aliens from using it again… hopefully, anyways.

Of course, the other Colonel had screwed all that up by not only not knowing the address, but looking between the assault team, the nuke, and O'Neill before grinning sharply.

"I think I have a plan."

Which was why, after dealing with the alien coming down to check in on the others down here, Jack, Jones, and their respective teams were now inside the alien spacecraft, making their way down the hall as quietly as they could while taking out the guards who got in the way.

(Side note: These guys had aliens  _in their gut_. Vicious little snake things; Nelson was lucky Jones had caught it before it'd leapt from the corpse of one of the guards with less stomach plating, smashing it under his heel.

He'd muttered something about parasites, but had started directing them onward before Jack could ask what he meant by that.)

They stopped at a fork in the path, the bomb crate being set down briefly so that the two hauling it could shake out their arms.

"If I were designing a ship, where would I put the prison block?" Jones muttered, shifting his head back and forth just enough to give each a considering look.

"I'm no alien overlord, but I'd suspect somewhere they could open up the airlocks in case the prisoners started getting unruly," Jack replied, his snark underlined with his exhaustion at the mission he hadn't signed up for but hadn't fought too hard against, because in the end he'd have done the same in Jones' shoes if he could.

"Just what I was thinking," The other man nodded, tapping his fingers against his weapon. "Too bad they don't have maps of the place or at least windows; makes it harder to tell which way is in or out."

Jack hummed, giving the halls his own lookover. There didn't seem to really be too much of a difference either way, which meant the only way they could really be sure they'd find their people in time and get the bomb set up to go off after everyone had escaped would be to- "Split up, then?"

"How're we dividing men?" Jones asked in turn. "Keeping our own squads, or splitting up men so each of us have some heavy hitters?"

"Second one," Jack replied. "We'll need to stow the bomb and come back for it later, since neither team can protect it on their own."

"Where, though?" The other colonel wondered, turning around to examine their surroundings before gesturing towards a recessed doorway. He stepped over, pressing a hand to the panel next to it and sighing in relief when the door opened to reveal what appeared to be a cargo room with no guards in sight. "In here look good?"

"Perfect," Jack nodded for two to the others to pick up the bomb crate and carry it in, tucking it behind some of the odd crates and barrels to avoid anyone accidentally peering inside and noticing the out of place container before retreating and shutting it behind them. "Who's on your team?"

"I'll take Dr. Sutters and whichever three of your men you're willing to send with."

Jack nodded, glancing between his team before deciding. "Nelson, Hill, Nguyen, go with him. The rest of you with me. We'll take the left hall. Stay in contact - we don't need to lose anyone else to this rescue mission."

"Call in if you find them, O'Neill." Jones hiked his weapon, his team coming to stand next to him.

"Same to you, Jones," Jack nodded back. "Good luck."

"Back at you." And then there were five, Jones taking his team down the right hall and out of sight, steps as quiet as they could manage.

Jack's own team met more resistance as they went along; apparently word had gotten out about invaders (possibly from the change in lighting, possibly from the crackling shouts over whatever intercom system the ship had, fuck, maybe over alien carrier pigeon, who could tell?), and though they were handling the waves so far, he had a sinking feeling that unless they found the others fast and made a break for it, they might end up being overwhelmed, especially if they started running low on ammo.

Right after finishing off another squad of enemies, Jack held up a hand, having heard something down the hall. It didn't sound like the metal footsteps he was getting familiar with, and there seemed to be way more than the last group-

"Hold fire," Jack whispered, signalling with his hand to lower their weapons slightly just in case. He frowned as he heard what sounded like those staff weapons go off again down the hallway a bit more, right before the first of the missing soldiers turned the corner, shock and then relief spreading across his unmasked face as he lowered his stolen weapon.

"Colonel O'Neill?" The man - Brown, he was on Heliopolis as well, Jack recalled - raised a hand in greeting, the stolen armor he was wearing making him look small.

"Brown," He replied, watching as the missing civilians started coming around the corner in a light sprint, all missing their masks, soaked through most of their clothing, and looking immensely relieved at the sight of his retrieval team. "You broke out?"

"Yessir," The man saluted after he had jogged over to join them, glancing back at the rest of the group. "We wanted to get the civvies out since we weren't sure when backup was coming-" -or if, was left unmentioned. "When most of the guards left, we took the chance to break out ourselves. Thanks for the distraction, by the way."

"You can thank Jones for that," Jack replied, counting the people that had joined them before frowning. "You're down three."

Brown nodded solemnly. "Danson, Ferretti, and Reilly went the other way with the best of the armor and weapons we could scrounge. They're trying to do as much damage to the ship and draw attention away from you guys as possible."

"Damnit," Jack swore, wishing for once he'd have an easier job of getting people to stick together. "I'll go after them with Torres and Cooper; the rest of you, follow Reed and Bell back to the transporter, understood?"

"Yes, colonel!" Brown saluted again, turning to the civilians and directing their attention to the two soldiers in question, their group making their way back to where they'd entered from while Jack and his two men made their way as quickly as possible down the hall they'd just deserted. The bodies of the enemy were lying against the floor, none of them so much as twitching, even as they passed the open grates in the floor that must have been the holding cells.

Part of him wanted to radio in and let Jones know the others had been found, but held back if only because he wasn't sure if that'd distract him at a crucial moment. He'd let the other colonel know of their success once he called in himself.

(Covert ops could be extremely annoying like that sometimes.)

For now, there were a few hotheaded, self sacrificing idiots to rescue and get out of this anthill of a mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a filler chapter, I suppose, but it accomplished the things I needed for the plot to progress on this end of things. Gonna get into some other things around Abydos and Earth before coming back, but hopefully you'll enjoy what I have planned as he make our way through the rest of the film.
> 
> To note: It's been three months or so since Jack's son Charlie died, and two months since his wife divorced him due to them being unable to handle the stress of it all. He's been seeing people provided by the military to help, but he's not quite back to the cheerful guy we see in the series yet – that will only be a few years down the way (or at least a few more months to handle it better).
> 
> Let's see... I have a rough estimate of maybe eight to ten more chapters? Though it's hard to say when the characters and plot sometimes take their own path through the events of the movie, not to mention how I change things up here and there so that they make more sense in real world (laughs) terms. Then I have one more main arc planned, and then...
> 
> Well, we'll see.


	22. Abydos: The Will of Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sha're might not be their chief, but she will not let her people down.

Sha're would not grieve, not when her people needed her to be strong. She, unlike them, had not lost family, although her father had been injured trying to pull a child out of the way of rubble blasted from the buildings by Ra's skyships.

She closed her eyes and sucked in a long breath, willing the shaking of her shoulders and heart down before she stepped back outside to offer comfort to those who needed it. Daniel, kind soul that he was, rested a hand on her shoulder, offering her what comfort he could. She could almost see the sorrowful expression on his face underneath his mask, an understanding between two peoples long separated from each other.

"I am sorry we brought this on your people," He apologized, even though they both knew he was no more at fault than herself.

"It is fine," She declined, wishing she could convince herself of that even as she explained. "Ra has done this before - it keeps us humbled, from thinking thoughts against him. We will recover in time."

"It isn't fine," Daniel retorted, exhaling sharply as he turned away to look out the small window at the destruction. "No god should do this to his people. It is cruel, wrong. Why do you not fight?"

Sha're shook her head, looking at him and willing him to see all the pain even the mere idea brought to her now. "We tried, long ago, and were punished harshly for it. We do not have the strength to go against him - his followers are too strong, and he can kill us all from above if he desires. How can we do anything against that?"

The foreigner sighed, seeing the truth in her words even as his head dipped down in displeasure, or perhaps guilt. It was strange to even hear someone so confidently speak of fighting against a being as powerful as Ra, only adding to her curiosity of just what his world was like to produce such odd people and an odder wise one.

"Daniel?" She asked, only remembering as he turned away from the window to look at her that she was still needed outside, with her own people. Her own interests could come later. "Would you like to help me?"

"Help you?" He repeated, before making his understanding noise. "With your people? Of course."

Sha're smiled and dipped her head in thanks, straightening herself before walking back out into the evening streets, approaching the first group resting in the shadows of one of the undamaged buildings she came to and kneeling down to rest a gentle hand on the child whose leg had been broken in the confusion - Yuny, if she recalled correctly.

"Shh, shh," She whispered, putting on a smile for the boy as he whimpered in pain and fear. "You're safe now, and your leg will mend soon."

"Why did Ra punish us?" Yuny sniffled, looking up to her as if she could see into the mind of the being who ruled them. "Did we do bad?"

"No, Yuny," Sha're replied, pausing as she almost repeated the mantra they had all learned from their parents and their parents' parents before them -

Ra was to be feared and respected, never questioned.

But Daniel had questioned him, had called him cruel, and sparked the same thoughts in her, threatening to burn her and her people if she were not careful. She sighed, looking to the child waiting for an answer. "We did nothing to provoke him. Sometimes he is displeased when he arrives, and we must simply handle it as best we can."

Yuny looked down to his hands, nodding quietly even as his eyes glistened. Helpless to offer more comfort, she looked up to his family, who all wore the same weary looks that rested in her heart. Her gaze then slid over to Daniel, whose face she could not see but whose clenched fists and rigid body said enough.

Finally, she looked further up the street, where her people's wise one stood, face weathered by the carnage wrought and the people lost to Ra's fury. Her gaze rested over her head, to the desert where Ra and the strangers both were, perhaps even seeing in her mysterious ways just what was happening at that distant place. The wise one's old gaze sank down to lock with her own, and in it Sha're could see the stresses she'd suffered from countless similar attacks, unable to do anything more to help her people than she already was.

Just as Sha're felt her spark of anger about to die out at the weight, the wise one's gaze lifted again, her brow furrowing slightly. She stood up, turning to look towards the gate just as Skaara and his friends stumbled in on their mounts, falling off their mounts in their hurry towards her.

"Sha're!" Ahmose called out, waving his arms frantically as he reached her side first, huffing heavily. "We saw the skyships - is everyone okay?"

"We lost seven lives, and dozens more are injured," Sha're replied, choking slightly on the numbers.

All four boys looked between each other, looking almost angry as opposed to the resignation she'd been surrounded by since the attacks had ended. It was almost like Daniel's own anger, but why…?

"We have to talk to the chief," Skaara decided after a moment, turning back to her with a serious expression. "Where is he?"

"He was injured saving Paimu's daughter; right now he rests, and I do not want to disturb him without good reason…"

Nabeh leaned forward, wide eyed and frantic as he spoke up. "We followed the strangers back to the chappa'ai, and we saw Ra's ship! And the strangers were inside the pyramid, talking to new strangers who we think were warriors! And Ra sent down one of his followers so we hid, and we heard the strangers use their loud weapons, and when we looked again, the follower was dead!"

Everyone around inhaled, including those who had gathered to see what had the four boys so worked up. "No one can kill them, though!"

"The strangers did!" Seti confirmed. "And you know what was underneath the mask his followers wear? A man! Not a monster, just a man like us, but in armor!"

The whispers spread, more and more people trickling in as Sha're's mind tried to wrap around that and failed. Ra's followers were invincible, just like he was - even these strangers should not have been able to stand up to his might - but she did not think they would lie about something this big.

Daniel stepped forward, frowning as he asked, "Did you get the name of these new strangers?"

Skaara frowned, thinking back. "I believe your leader called the other leader Onell?"

The name fumbled off his tongue, the syllables foreign to him, but it seemed to draw a reaction from Daniel none the less. "O'Neill?" He muttered to himself in his strange language before returning to her own language. "Did you see if they left the pyramid or not?"

"No," Seti replied, shaking his head. "We came back as soon as we saw the skyships leave Ra's ship. We knew we had to tell the chief what we'd seen as soon as possible, to let him know it is possible to fight against Ra with the help of the strangers."

Daniel nodded, fingers twitching as he brought his hand up to where his lips would be. "I know O'Neill - he is a good man and a good warrior. If our home sent him, then they must know about Ra. They probably came to take us home, but since Jones - our leader - did not find the information to activate the chappa'ai, they can't do that."

He sighed, his shoulders dropping as he turned to face the desert. "I think I might need to go there to help them; I don't know if they can hold out against Ra forever if he is as strong as you say, and I'm the only one who can get them all home now."

Sha're heart dropped as she turned to him. "But he left you here so you would be safe, didn't he?"

"I know that," Daniel shook his head. "But they are my friends; I can't let them die when I can help them."

"Even though you would go alone?" She asked quietly.

He shrugged. "Ra should not send out any more skyships, right? I'll be safe until I get there, and I do know how to be careful."

Sha're knew she was not alone in staring at him. "But if Ra gets the Eye…"

"Even then," Daniel affirmed. "I won't ask any of you to come with me; we've caused you enough harm with our presence, even if we did not mean to."

"I will go," Skaara immediately intervened, stepping forward to stare Daniel stright in the eyes. "I am not afraid of Ra's ship or his followers, and you need someone to take you on a mastadge, since you'll be too late if you go on foot."

"I'm not afraid either!" Ahmose declared. "The strangers stood up to Ra; I want to help them so that Ra cannot overwhelm them."

Sha're could only watch as slowly the numbers who wanted to help him get the strangers home grew, until most of the city had seemed to pledge their support. Helpless in the face of their passion, she turned again to the wise one, who no longer slumped under her years but seemed to be filling with the same determination as the people around her.

"Please, you don't have to!" Daniel protested, sounding almost scared - for them? "What if he hurts you further because you all helped me?"

"He hurts us every day," She found herself saying, drawing many eyes to her as she stood up straight, looking up at him as if he were a fool. "For hundreds of lifetimes he has done nothing but work us, treating us like mere beasts to be whipped and culled at his whim. Even if he strikes us down for this, he cannot do more than he already has."

"He could kill you all," He reminded, waving his hands around to the destruction already wrought.

"Then he will have failed, because even he cannot force the dead to work for him."

Sha're tilted her chin in challenge, waiting for him to protest further. Part of her felt lost to the same madness that had captured the hearts of her people, but as she looked across their faces, she knew she was making the right decision, even if her father would have protested if he were here.

But it was she who led her people in his absence, and she knew, even without looking, that the wise one felt the same passion as they all did in that moment.

They would not let the strangers down, and they would not let Daniel down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, what a chapter to write! It took a while to find my flow for this, but once I had the initial conversation in mind suddenly it just started flowing from there, and led to perhaps the most interesting development in this story yet even though I sort of planned for it? I suppose it just didn't take the path I expected initially so the end development surprised me is all.
> 
> Sha're finally gets her own chapter, and I wanted to show her qualities as a leader first and foremost. I'm also setting the cornerstone for the eventual relationship of Daniel and Sha're, but as the people of Abydos did not see the Away Team as Ra's followers and thusly pushed for the marriage to 'appease' them, the two will be allowed a chance to learn about each other before they start taking the plunge.
> 
> Just to repeat – the romance will be mostly offscreen! This fic is mostly about Alfred and Matthew and the other Nations and how their presence (and my need to have a plot that isn't wrought with plotholes and inconsistencies and just bad planning) affects things! Not going to lie, when/if I touch on the series, things might go very differently than in the episode, and not always for the better.


	23. Abydos: Sugar We're Goin' Down Swinging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all his centuries of experience, even Alfred can get in over his head.

Alfred calls for a brief halt in their slow progress once they hit the next intersection, having already taken out the patrol just passing by with a few good shots and dragging their bodies into the side room the group was huddled in while they watched the corridor. The rest of his group took the chance to snack on a ration bars, no one uttering a word while he thought of what to do next.

' _O'Neill's already found the prisoners,_ ' he noted with approval, having felt the group make their way back to the entrance while his group circled around the long way. ' _Just need to find the last group and we can get out of here and set off the nuke._ '

Despite his earlier bravado with the special ops leader, he was not at all eager to set off another one of those weapons, no matter how he tried to justify it to himself. Everything echoed far too closely to what he'd told himself during the end of WW2 and for a good chunk of the Cold War, which was enough to leave him leery.

He didn't know the full story here, only what he'd been told by the people on the planet below them, so how could he justify sending who could easily be innocent soldiers to their deaths when the only one he could reasonably pull the trigger against was the being leading them?

(Were his own soldiers much different in their loyalty? He just didn't know enough about these people to say for sure.)

Alfred sighed, closing his eyes while he shook his head. He'd already commit himself to the plan the moment he came up here, and to go back would only leave an angry alien overlord demanding their blood and possibly, he feared, the rest of Earth as well. And if there was one thing he was not going to risk, it was his people - his  _world's_  people.

Which meant using the third directed nuclear strike against an enemy in history.

Fuck.

"Sir?" Nguyen asked, drawing his attention away from the hall. "Should we check in with Colonel O'Neill now?"

Alfred hummed in thought, getting a feel for where the other groups were in regards to them and estimating how long it would take for everyone to get back together. "I think now's as good a time as any to try."

He brought the radio up to his mouth, glancing between the others of his group as he called in, "O'Neill, this is Jones, over."

They waited out the next thirty seconds in silence, and Alfred scowled before trying again. "This is Jones calling in, do you read this, over."

After another short pause Alfred groaned, slamming a fist gently into the wall behind him. "Damnit, the walls must be absorbing the signal. Alright, new plan - we're going to head to the left and try and loop around to meet up with O'Neill's group. If we don't run into them within twenty minutes, we'll turn around and return the way we came, hopefully meeting up with them at the entrance."

"What if they're captured, sir?" Hill asked, though he didn't sound happy to bring up the possibility.

"I don't know," The Nation sighed. "But for right now, we need to keep moving so we don't get captured ourselves; I'll think of something if it turns out they are."

That much, at least, was the truth - he wasn't going to leave anyone back here if he could avoid it, even if it meant going in on his own to break any stragglers out before setting off the bomb. It'd probably piss off a lot of people once they found out, but he'd deal with them when the time came.

"Everyone done eating?" He glanced around the group, confirming all of them were ready and holding the weapons they'd salvaged from the dropped guards. "Then let's get moving."

The hallways were silent aside from their own careful footsteps, slowly raising the tension of the group as they failed to run into another group of guards even though all logic said they should have at this point. Nelson, their rear guard, paused their progress once when he thought he spied movement, but with no one leaping out at them they eventually started to press on.

As focused as they were on the hall in front of and behind them, no one noticed the wall beside them slide open until they heard the battle shout of the enemy, snapping all of them back to real time as they drew their weapons and turned to face the small squad that had gotten the jump on them.

Nelson got hit first, the blast sending him almost to the far wall before he crumpled to the floor. Alfred managed to shove Dr. Sutters out of the way of another blast only to be targeted by three others, hitting the floor hard when two of the lights connected at once. As his vision glazed over, he swore, hoping that this wouldn't compromise him in the long run.

~0~0~

Alex held up his hand to bring the other two to a halt, even though it wasn't really necessary at this point since his companions were also adept at making out the bootsteps of the enemy. The current group approaching sounded larger than the others, making the decision to wait for them to pass an easy one for all three of them.

"Do you think the others have made it out yet?" Reilly asked quietly, holding the second staff he'd nabbed close to his chest.

"Probably," Alex replied just as quietly. "But they'll need time to reach the colonel and get the address out of here."

Ferretti shook his head. "I still can't believe we've managed to last this long; you'd think these guys would change up strategies by now, wouldn't you?"

"I'd rather not jinx us, thanks," The Canadian replied dryly. "Remember last time you mentioned that?"

"How was I supposed to know he'd recover that fast?" Ferretti complained. "There's something going on with them and those snake things in their guts."

"Shh," Reilly gestured out the doorway they were huddled in, just in time for the enemy group to come marching by, unconscious bodies hanging between them-

"Shit," Alex swore under his breath. "They have the colonel."

"And some new guys," Ferretti pointed out. "You think command sent through a rescue squad?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Reilly replied. "You know we're gonna have to bust those guys out of here, right?"

Alex and Ferretti glanced to each other and back to the third member of the group. Honestly, there was no way they would consider leaving their commanding officer behind, especially after his probably hijacking of command's orders to rescue  _them_  in turn.

"Let's do this."

They waited five beats before stepping back out, all three of them checking their small weapons stash to make sure all of them had cooled down enough to use again before taking a step-

They heard something behind them and twirled, drawing staves against the guns leveled at them into a short lived ceasefire until they recognized each other. "Colonel O'Neill?"

"You three have caused quite a bit of trouble, haven't you?" The older man replied, grinning as he gestured down the hall. "Saw the damage you did to the panels and doorways - nice job."

"Did you locate the others, sir?" Alex asked, still shocked that they'd sent the man.

"They're off this ship by now, which you would be as well if you'd thought to stick with them."

Ferretti swallowed but stood firm. "We didn't know at the time there was going to be a rescue team, so we based our split on the fact that someone had to draw the guards away from the civilians, sir."

O'Neill gave them a hard look before nodding. "Can't say I blame you there, but in any case, we need to head back to meet with the others and get out of here so we can blow the ship out of the sky."

"We can't, sir," Alex replied, grimacing. "A patrol just went by, and they have Colonel Jones."

O'Neill swore loudly before calming himself down, piercing Alex with his gaze. "You have any spare armor around? We're going to need it to break those idiots out of this place alive."

"Yessir," The Canadian replied, grateful to have the backup for their new mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, did I kill off Alfred? Silly me! But in all seriousness if you expect me to keep him dead then you clearly don't know me all that well. Also doing that would go against canon for BOTH series so who am I to deny such powerful forces?
> 
> In related news, I have recently come to a revelation that should if nothing else allow me to do a lot of things I didn't think I could do without leaning towards the reasonable edge of suspension of disbelief, which I will get into sometime in the distant future but not for now, because as things stand I like leaving a few surprises lying around to pick up later.


	24. Abydos: Stand Your Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ra can also get in over his head, actually, even if he doesn't know so at the time.

" _You are quite the stubborn young man, aren't you?" Her voice feels like a kind smile, or perhaps a small grin. "Out of all those who could have found the Stargate, I find myself glad it was you. Few others would have chosen to do what you have, and fewer yet would be capable of succeeding."_

_You feel warmth settle over your heart briefly, a burst of amusement and pride that isn't your own._

" _Don't give up just yet - your people are counting on you, America."_

~0~0~

Alfred woke up in a dimly lit box, with the taste of ash in his mouth, and thought to himself, ' _fuck._ '

His body wasn't aching nearly as much as he'd thought it would be after just recovering, but he had no idea how long he'd been knocked out - no, he was actually awake  _earlier_  than usual, only twenty minutes between his death and waking up. It usually took around an hour to recover depending on the circumstances if he hadn't been too bodily wounded, so what was going on?

Shit, how was he going to play it off? He'd died in front of his own men, and if they saw him just get up there'd be so much paperwork it'd be a pain, and that wasn't counting what he'd have to do with the Canadians!

(Mattie was going to  _kill_  him. And probably recruit Ginny to help, since his States  _had_  to have felt the backlash even from here.)

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, deciding he'd deal with it after he got his men out of here. Their presences were nearby, with a few others a bit farther away, and the rest down below - huh, wait, was that-

The casket he was in opened, the top peeling away smoothly and blinding him temporarily with the outside light. He bit back a groan, deciding to play dead just a longer in case he could glean something important first.

"Do not think you can fool my eyes, mortal," A voice growled in Abydonian above him, right before a metal clad hand reached in to drag him up forcefully and sparking a fit of rebellion as he snapped to full attention. He had a hand on the soldier's arm ready to crush it before he remembered their audience, forcing himself to merely glower at the guard before turning his attention to the speaker.

"Our final guest awakes," The man - the one Soona had told him of? - seemed pleased, lounging back in his chair and surrounded by children as richly dressed as he was. If there was a spark of the human still in there, it was buried underneath the cruel pleasure of the being controlling him. "As you can see, even death is nothing to the power of the gods."

...wait, was this guy taking credit for reviving him? He glanced down to the box, realizing that it had what looked to be complex wireline running al throughout it, and wondered if it actually was a healing chamber of some kind like the being claimed. If it was…

Well then. Time to play his role.

Alfred's eyes widened, his gaze going back to the would-be god. "Why would you bother?"

Ra tilted his chin up in contempt. "How else to prove my might? You have proven yourselves resourceful and strong - bow to me and I will spare your lives and those of the people below. If not…"

The man gestured to two of his soldiers, who bowed and turned to open the door from which he could sense a few of his men - including O'Neill. Two others walked in, carrying a sickeningly familiar box between them. "Your world sent this weapon as a message. I intend to use it as one myself, to leave no doubts as to who rules all."

"You would murder the people here just to send a message?" Alfred gaped at the sheer cruelty of the idea, suppressing the gag reflex from the memories of the other two bombs he'd dropped.

"As satisfying as that would be, they are needed to mine the naquadah here. I have a much better place in mind."

He glanced from Ra to his men, who all looked beaten and bruised but thankfully alive and intact. They all looked a shade paler as well, mouths twisted into grimaces in some knowledge he hadn't gleaned from them yet.

"He knows the address to Earth, sir," Abigail replied to his silent question wearily, the words punching him in the gut.

 _ **No**_ , every instinct in his body screamed at once, turning back to the would-be god with a glare fierce enough to scare down the Soviet Union at its prime. He felt a twinge of grim satisfaction at the brief spark of fear he caught before it was covered up, Ra once again centering himself as the one in control of the situation.

Thankfully the guard that had dragged him up had long ago been called back to Ra's side, or Alfred would have likely crushed his arm during that rush of fury. The staff weapon was leveled at him, though he could see the hinted waver in it at the indirect effects.

(He felt bad for scaring the kids, slightly, but he had other things to worry about right now.)

"What will it be, mortal? Your home, or theirs?"

Alfred straightened up in his seat, a refusal on his lips, right before the doors were blasted open and momentary chaos overtook the room. He used the opportunity to leap out of the box and down the steps, freeing those who were part of his squad while the rescue crew drew the attention of the soldiers while waving for a weapon to be tossed his way.

Jack seemed to understand, for one of the staves flew over to him, clattering right by his legs before he snatched it up, activated it the way he'd seen the soldiers do, and turned to aim right at the god-

And stopped, seeing the kids surround him as a living shield, one that even as furious as he was he could not pull the trigger on, because while once merely knocked you out, there was no reason for Ra to not hold up the unconscious forms to shield him further.

Jack seemed to feel the same, for his weapon also started to lower slightly after the last of the guards in the room were knocked out. Ra used their hesitation to his advantage, calling out for more guards and watching from behind his shield as several dozen poured in, all weapons aimed right at them.

This was a fight they couldn't win. Alfred allowed his staff to drop after a moment, holding back the urge to keep fighting regardless as his men slowly followed suit. The guards stepped forward, kicking or removing the weapons before roughly forcing everyone's hand behind them and pinning them in place.

He could break out of this, and his people were all alive and conscious. He looked to Jack, whose uncovered face said enough about his opinion of the issue.

"You have made your choice, then," Ra declared, his shield dispersed now that the threat was gone. "You will be executed at dawn, and the people of this world will forever know what comes of standing against me."

Not if Alfred could help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're actually much closer to the end of this arc than I thought earlier, but what with writing out the rest of the arc it struck me I don't have as much to get through in order to make it all coherent and solid. So maybe two more chapters of action, then two or three of debriefing and unwinding, and then we'll probably get into the next arc.
> 
> After that... I dunno. It's fun writing Alfred's adventures in this universe, but at the same time the series has a TON of material that might take ages to get through even if I work at it all nonstop. Not to mention I don't want this to be the fic that keeps going long after it reached a satisfying endpoint, so... hrm. Will think on it more later I think.


	25. Abydos: This Is What We Are Fighting For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel learns a bit more about the people of Abydos, and wonders...

Daniel Jackson was not a stupid man - easily distracted, sure, and also stubborn to a fault once he'd made up his mind (one had to be to defend their papers, especially as insane as his own), but not stupid. He knew where he was qualified to speak up and where he wasn't; if it had to do with the cultures of the middle-east or their offshoots, he was your man. Head an archaeology team in the deserts of another world? Sure, why not?

He was not qualified, on the other hand, to be the figurehead of an entire culture's revolution, especially against an alien posing as an ancient god.

As he and what felt to be most of the city made their way towards the pyramid, his mastadge just behind and to the left of Sha're and Skaara's own plodding duo, he was at the least grateful he wasn't being expected to actually lead this, because he knew next to nothing of military command and leadership aside from the basic lessons back at Command in case of basewide emergency. The colonels, on the other hand…

Maybe he shouldn't have said anything, because whatever combination of things he's said had spurred on this rebellious wave in the native population and had them marching to an almost certain defeat. He was supposed to know better than to claim a people's way of life was wrong just because they faced different circumstances - he'd worked in a dozen digs in Egypt and Asia Minor and managed to keep a clear head - but when they'd been attacked by the very being who was supposed to look after them, he'd just been so shocked and outraged that he hadn't really stopped to think before speaking his mind.

Daniel sighed, head drooping from the exhaustion catching up after a long, long night. Had it really only been a single night? It felt like a month had passed since the sandstorm had ended and Colonel Jones had left with the squad to go after the team.

...that reminded him, actually - how had he known something was wrong before they'd even had a chance to check in again? If it had just been a bad feeling, that'd be one thing, but he had very clearly turned in what, based on his calculations, had been the exact direction of the pyramid, like he could actually see what was going on there. And he'd picked up the local language… surprisingly fast for someone who wasn't specialized in the old dialects of the region these people had come from.

He exhaled again, shaking his head to wake himself up some more. He didn't want to start seeing things that weren't there, or else the people he was working with now might start thinking him crazy like the rest of the archaeological community did right now… if they remembered his name at this point.

"Daniel," He heard Sha're call from beside him, her face lit oddly by the triad of moons hanging above them in the pre-dawn. "Are you well?"

"I'm alright," He replied, nudging his beast on from where it had started to fall behind from the others and watching as the chief's daughter urged hers to match his pace. "Just...thinking."

"It seems to be a time for it, does it not?" She smiled, and he found himself smiling back before he realized it.

"It does," He agreed, thinking over his next words carefully before he continued. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do? Leading your people here instead of letting me go alone, I mean."

Sha're took a moment to think as well. "My people need this, even if it does not end well. You and your people have given them sight of a future other than serving Ra, and they desire that more than anything now."

"How can you be sure we are strong enough to help?" Daniel asked. "We only have a handful of warriors against him, and his ship is far beyond us."

"Because you have heart," She replied. "Your leader more than any other."

"I suppose he does," He agreed. "Will that be enough?"

"It will be," Sha're vowed, more to herself than anyone, and then they crested the hill overlooking the pyramid.

Some of the people had gotten nervous when the massive shape that had overlaid the pyramid started looming over the horizon, but the strength of numbers kept everyone going, and their leader's relative confidence bolstered their own, returning the pace to normal after only a few minutes. This time they all came to a stop, though, because Ra's men were already waiting on the platform in front of the main door.

Between them all, the two Colonels and the rest of the combined away teams were held at guard, standing together against the desert chill and the light breeze blowing sand into their bare faces.

One of the guards shouted, drawing the others to attention and also putting some energy back into the captives. Colonel Jones, still standing straight despite what looked like burn marks in his uniform and bruises on his face, turned from his group to look up at them, unbowed by the treated he'd gotten. Even the clamps around his wrists did not take away from the strange image that he still had some control over the whole situation.

When his gaze settled onto Daniel, the archaeologist straightened himself, feeling some of his exhaustion fall off his shoulders even as the local sun just started to peek over the sands, casting long shadows over the land. Jones moved on shortly after, pausing at some face in the crowd before nodding and turning back to the guards near him.

The first guard to notice them stepped forward, starting to shout about the glory of Ra and how he would slay those who would not bow to him, so as to prove his might forever. If the god had hoped this would dispel the courage of the people here, he severely underestimated them, for all Daniel could see were anger and determination.

Sha're stepped forward, having slid off her mount, her chin raised high and looking every inch a queen in the dawn's light as she proclaimed, very simply, "We do not bow to Ra anymore."

Her people raised up a battlecry, startling the guards who had expected passive acceptance, all of them stepping forward with their staff weapons at the ready, entirely focused on now putting down the rebellion even as the first people started to follow Skaara and Sha're down the dune.

Of course, that gave the people they were guarding the perfect opportunity to strike from behind, the colonels in unison kicking two of the guards from behind and sending them sprawling on the sands below, nabbing their abandoned weapons and using them to blast the wrist clamps open.

Daniel, who had not joined the initial charge, felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the wise woman who had been with Colonel Jones earlier smiling at him.

"Thank you, Daniel Jackson," She told him, lingering just a moment before passing by, helping the people who had been caught in the initial volleys from the guards before the numbers had overwhelmed them. It seemed that between the now-free soldiers and the large numbers of locals with improvised weaponry, the battle had turned in their favor.

Then the ship above them started to glow and hum, drawing everyone's attention briefly as the panels on it started to shift back into tight formation.

It seemed Ra had seen the tide turn as well, and was now making his escape while he still could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, you managed to get someone suspicious, Alfred, but at least he's the trustworthy type. And there ya go, a bit more for the shippers without like being too obnoxious about it, because these things need to build up over time.
> 
> And yes, though it seems like things have happened over a huge period of time, everything from the party onwards was just one night. Talk about a wild night, huh?


	26. Abydos: Our Spirit, Our Laws and Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite the odds, Jack and Jones can pull off miracles if properly motivated.

Jack lowered his borrowed weapon to look up at the ship that looked like it was preparing to take off, swearing when he realized that there would be no way to stop the self-proclaimed god from leaving and bringing back reinforcements to reclaim this planet and then attack Earth once he was done. To his left, Jones swore as well, looking like he also knew how screwed they were once the being was gone.

"You have any idea what to do?" The other colonel asked after a moment.

"Nada, unless the locals have some sort of hidden spaceship or giant gun to shoot the thing down," Jack replied, groaning. "This situation is way beyond my paygrade now."

"When we get out of this alive, I'll try to make sure everyone's compensated," Jones muttered, shaking his head as they turned to see the clean up of the guards abandoned by Ra to the local's revolutionary wrath. A flash of pale skin among them drew his attention, and a few seconds allowed him to recognize Dr. Jackson, the head of the archaeology team assigned here and their ticket out of here.

"Colonel Jones! Colonel O'Neill," The man greeted both of them, still wearing his facemask as he ran up, a few of the locals at his side.

"Dr. Jackson," Jones nodded back, grinning. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Thanks for the backup; wasn't expecting the locals to step in, but it helped a lot."

"Ah, I'm not really the one to blame, I think," He apologized, ducking his head as he glanced to the young man who was barely even an adult by Jack's standards. "Skaara here was the one who followed you guys to the pyramid and watched you fight off one of Ra's guards. He and his friends came back and told everyone, and with the chief out of commission due to injury his daughter decided to go along with the people and, well,"

"Stage a revolution?" Jones replied, sounding far too amused with what could have been a tragic situation if they hadn't been so damned lucky with the would-be god's arrogance. "Sounds like you had fun then."

"If you want to see it that way, sir," Jackson replied dryly. "What happened with you guys? I'm surprised Command sent in more people so quickly."

Jack figured it'd be safe to explain quickly, even as the hum of the ship overhead started to drown him out. "One of the soldiers - Private Danson - was able to hide from Ra's guards long enough to get a message back to Command about the would-be God who'd shown up and captured the rest of the away team."

"Ra?" Jackson's eyes widened, hand reaching up to his throat before it dropped. Hmm, something to ask about after they figured out a way to stop the ship from leaving.

"That's what he called himself; wasn't any sort of god I would ever worship, though. General West called me out of bedrest and got me the best men and gear he could get on short notice, handed me a huge bomb, and told me to evacuate everyone and blow it up behind us so that alien god and his followers couldn't follow us."

"Wait," Jones interrupted, eyes wide suddenly. "Has Ra sent that back through the gate yet?"

"...shit," Jack swore, raising his voice to be heard by the other soldiers. "Men, we need to get back into the pyramid ASAP - Ra's goons might still be planning on sending that parting gift of ours back, and I don't fancy heading home to find it a crater."

"What do you need me to do?" Jackson asked, frowning.

"Tell the locals to get as far from here as they can - if this thing detonates here, this entire area is gonna be uninhabitable really fast." Jack readjusted his grip on his weapon, gesturing for the soldiers to follow him before running inside, Jones right besides him.

Even with the crush of time against them, Jack was still glad to see the men thinking and moving quietly instead of running in as fast as possible. Hopefully the guards in here wouldn't realize what had happened outside and could thus be ambushed, hopefully before they activated the gate, or at least before they were able to send the bomb back through.

For once luck was on their side - the four with the crate were all turned away, three guarding the ring while the last messed with the weird platform which looked like an intact version of the one in Heliopolis, which hadn't been there when he'd first arrived. Perhaps it'd been hidden in that alcove that was now open? Neat trick.

That was not his worry however. After gesturing for the soldiers with staves to take position (he'd handed his own back over to Danson, who looked pleased to have a weapon again), he counted down from three with his fingers, finally slashing his hand to get them to fire, all four going down and two almost certainly dead due to the two lights smashing into them at once.

If it wasn't for the stupid long cooldown and the fact that magic shooting staves looked ridiculous and sounded even more so, Jack would certainly have volunteered to be one of the first to try out the ones Command would probably try to recreate once these babies were handed over to them. Maybe they could be turned into phasers like in Star Trek, that'd be much more satisfying.

The increased rumbling from outside reminded them their victory was short lived, the colonels exchanging looks as they realized time was up and that Ra's ship had finally charged up enough to start leaving the planet.

Jones glanced between him and the bomb, then to the fallen soldiers, and turned back to him with a downright evil grin. "I think I have an idea."

"Where have I heard that before?" Jack asked, recognizing the same scenario from a mere few hours ago.

Jones laughed. "You think that ship's out of the range of those teleportation rings?"

Jack looked to the bomb, up to the ceiling, and back to Jones before grinning just as widely. "Let's find out, shall we?"

The two of them along with another two soldiers hauled up the crate again, feeling impossibly light (probably from the adrenaline pumping through them all as the realization that they were this close to atomization crossed all their minds) as they hauled it back up the ramp from the gate to the front hall with the transporter. Dropping it off in the middle, Jones walked over and purposefully slapped his hand against the activation button, grinning when the rings descended and carried the crate away in a flash of light.

"Who wants to see the fireworks?" Jones asked, and none of them needed to say anything as they all ran outside, seeing that the locals had thankfully left the immediate area, though how far they were at this point was hard to say with a group that large. The ship, once a monster towering over them, was only a faint dot in the sky, receding further into the dawn with every second that passed until it vanished entirely.

Less than thirty seconds after that, a second sun lit the sky briefly, the full force of the nuke appearing to successfully tear the ship apart if the amount of energy visible was any indication. Probably ignited all the fuel in there at once if he guessed right.

In the distance he could hear the crescendo of cheers as the locals appeared to realize that there was only one explanation for the even now dimming light that had failed to overtake the world's true sun, an almost fitting tribute to their newfound freedom from the menace for multiple reasons.

"Never thought I'd be the one to liberate an entire planet and defeat an alien god." Jack finally decided, allowing himself to relax at last now that the danger seemed to have passed at last.

"You're telling me," Jones replied, lowering his hand from where he'd been covering his eyes to watch the explosion fade away entirely. "This is gonna make for a real interesting report if my brother doesn't murder me for dying first."

"Hey, you survived death once, I'm sure you'll be fine," Jack joked, recalling what he'd overheard from the doorway before attacking.

"Yeah, but that was just a god. My brother's way more creative than that."

For some reason that statement and the petulant, accepting tone was absolutely hilarious, and for the first time since he'd lost his family he found himself laughing long and hard, almost doubled over and completely missing the return of the locals and the small yet satisfied smile on Jones' face before he turned to greet them.

For now, everything was alright, and that was more than worth celebrating at this point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this sort of wraps up the events of the movie! Not too bad for someone who's mostly writing the parallel events from memory and a few scenes being rewatched early on. And yes, if you didn't catch it, I didn't have Ra redeploy his fighters to get shot down so SGC would have space travel – I'm think that reward will have to wait for later, esp since it'll take them a while to get through enough Heliopolis data to actually start making good use of it on that front.
> 
> Also this was a good way to give Jack a bit of progress away from his stresses and put him on the path to the snarky guy we love in the series, although I will certainly not forget them when it'll be convenient to the plot. Alfred's done good, though, so that's a small consolation to tide him over considering what's coming for him in the immediate future.


	27. Interlude: For Homeworld Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of consequences to Alfred's actions on Abydos, some of which he might not encounter for years and others he'll face right off the bat.

"...after that, Dr. Jackson and I spoke to the chief's daughter and decided that future trade relations and an outpost on Abydos wouldn't be out of the question in the future should we choose to pursue it." Alfred finished, looking remarkably calm for someone who had literally just reported his death and 'resurrection' with the help of the alien posing as a god.

' _Fine, let him be calm,'_  Matthew decided with a bit more anger than was probably necessary right now, when his boss and military needed him to be able to help decide what they were doing to do with an entire planet of grateful, liberated slaves living hundreds of lightyears away. ' _Maybe I'll be able to smack more sense into him later if Ginny doesn't get to him first.'_

He could only think God or whoever else was watching out for them that Alfred had been damned lucky that god had chosen to accept credit for the American personifications' rebirth, meaning they didn't have to cover their asses on how he'd survived what otherwise seemed to be assured death. Matthew would have been contemplating far worse than a few smacks and some yelling if that were the case.

"Is that everything?" The president asked, hiding his expression behind his hands, though the Canadian was rather sure he was annoyed Alfred had taken such unnecessary risks, no matter that it had turned out good.

To the other Nation's left, Colonel O'Neill nodded. "That matches up with everything I've been a part of since I was sent in, sir."

"Right then," General West nodded to the man. "You're dismissed, O'Neill; Jones, I want some more information about this oracle woman you spoke to."

O'Neill saluted and left, the door clicking behind him and leaving only those who knew the personifications for who and what they were. Alfred let his stance slouch slightly, drooped in sudden exhaustion. "Is that what you really want, or is there something else?"

"Knowing whether she's the local personification would help in terms of gauging relations," The Prime Minister stated, hands clasped together and resting on the table.

"Yes, she's Abydos, human name Soona. Turns out she's actually the original Egyptian personification from when Ra first arrived on the planet eleven thousand years ago."

Matthew's jaw dropped just a bit. "You're telling me she's more than twice as old as China and still alive?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction too. She's not that set in her ways though; I think she'd be more than open to cultural and educational efforts if we offered them so that she can catch up on what's happened to Earth since she was moved there." Alfred flashed a small grin at his brother, the grin fading away as he turned back to the others. "What else?"

"You died." Matthew spoke up, wanting to just get that out of the way. "And Ra claimed he was the one who brought you back?"

Alfred exhaled. "Apparently he had this coffin type thing serving as a high end regenerator - wires and everything inside it - and I woke up after only twenty minutes instead of the usual hour it takes to shake that sort of death off. Can't exactly tell you how it works, though - thing blew up with his ship, along with those small aircraft and whatever else he might've had on board."

"So no one knows of your oddities?"

The Nation paused with a frown, seeming to look all his people over mentally before shaking his head. "No one sir, as far as I can tell, although I think Dr. Jackson might have his suspicions. I doubt he'll push anything for a while, though, since he's still focused on what he and his team have managed to retrieve from the pyramid and the locals. Matt?"

The Canadian frowned and concentrated on his people who'd gone out there, shaking his head after a minute in relief. "Nothing here at all. At least you didn't fuck that up."

"Hey, I liberated an entire planet from an evil alien and got you a bunch of grateful locals open to trade, as well as new weapons to experiment with and a bunch of cultural and historical depictions from someone who lived through all that shit. The fact that I only have one guy dead from the whole thing says volumes about what I pulled off, especially since someone sent a goddamned nuke through as their emergency plan."

Matthew froze, voice going dangerously quiet once he found it again. "You said nothing about a nuke in your report."

"O'Neill knew what it was and so did I, but the others think it was just a huge wad of high-end explosives. The real question is, how exactly did the good general get his hands on one so quickly, not to mention the authorization to force me to launch the third nuke against an enemy force in my history?"

General West frowned, straightening at the stare he got from his Nation. "I got it just in case things went like this, because if nothing else it would act as a deterrent against following our people through the gate. I wasn't aware at the time that the alien had actually been to Earth before and would know where to go from Abydos, so I thought it would be our best defence against a force far beyond ours."

"That doesn't tell me where you got it from, General," Alfred replied.

"The NID," The president replied, drawing everyone else's attention. "He told me an hour after he received it, since he knew they shouldn't have been able to get a hold of one without my express permission. There's a gaping hole in our system somewhere, and he felt that his own career was worth sinking if it meant he could find out where this hole was and plug it."

Matthew's eyebrows rose, turning to face the General with a myriad of emotions running through him. On one hand, the man had gone around the president to get a nuke, and then proceeded to use it, but on the other he was actually apparently trying to do good after all, even as roundabout and insane as it was.

Alfred seemed to examine the man thoroughly, probably to be sure that was truly his intentions and nothing else. After a minute he closed his eyes and put a hand to his mouth, pulling it down and away slowly before he opened his eyes again. "I don't know whether to yell at you for forcing me to use a nuke again or congratulate you on a plan so nuts I wouldn't have come up with it. All I know is that I don't think I can trust you to continue running this program directly if you're going to go to those extremes on a situation you don't know everything about."

"You won't have to worry about it, since it's already been discussed well before your return and only solidified with your success," The president smiled grimly. "Officially, he's being promoted to the head of the newly formed Homeworld Security, there to coordinate additional troops and supply movement to the future of the Stargate Program without drawing more attention than necessary. The Canadians are filling a similar branch to coordinate with him, which will hopefully allow our main Air Force generals to return to their other duties instead of covering for this."

Alfred opened his mouth to complain.

" _Unofficially,_ " The president cut in, forcing Alfred to close his mouth with a bitter frown. "He's going to be keeping an eye on the people who might try and get an in with the program that shouldn't know about it, just in case they try for anything dangerous with the technologies we'll be retrieving. Threats aren't just aliens, after all."

The American personification nodded slowly, taking in a deep breath and exhaling before asking, "Who's replacing him here, then?"

"General Hammond," Matthew's own general replied. "On General West's recommendation."

Alfred frowned and nodded. "I can work with him, I think - he know about this yet?"

"He will in a few days," The president replied. "Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

Matthew's brother frowned for a minute, almost seeming ready to just end the meeting already, but closed his eyes and grimaced. "While I was talking to Abydos, I learned that the being posing as Ra wasn't actually an alien. He was one of her people, only not."

"Alfred, humans don't live that long, no matter the regenerative technology at hand," Matthew pointed out, confused.

"Humans on their own don't, no - humans with super healing, parasitic aliens inside them? Who knows at this point?"

"Parasites?"

"That's the closest word I was able to get from her explanation. ' _The boy he took still walked and breathed, but it was Ra's eyes and voice in him commanding us through the chappa'ai to gather the minerals he so craved.'_  Ah, Chappa'ai is their term for the ring, and the minerals are apparently the stuff the locals were mining for him there, which I know a few of the eggheads want to study once they're allowed to go back."

"Parasites," General West replied slowly, looking only marginally less disturbed by the idea than the rest of the people there. "Are you sure they're capable of what you claim?"

"No, I don't - all I know is that the soldiers who didn't die recovered from being unconscious almost as fast I did from death, and that all of them have those snake things in them, even the dead guys. Got attacked by a few of the snakes as well while on his ship - if they aren't parasites, there's still something really creepy about them that should be studied as soon as possible."

"Do you think they're a threat to your kind?" The Prime Minister asked, concerned.

"...Soona seemed to think it's possible, but there's honestly no way to tell without testing, and there's obvious reasons I don't wanna do that without a minigun on hand and a sealed box."

The entire room was silent for a moment, realizing the threat they'd almost faced. "And none of your men are… infested, then?"

"None, thankfully, though you should keep the enemy guards on tight lockdown and hopefully sedate those things before they decide to try and escape."

"I doubt anyone will need motivation to keep all of them locked up indefinitely," The president agreed, standing up. "If that's everything, I think we can call a break to go over the reports individually and decide where we go from here. Oh, and America?"

"Yes boss?"

The man smiled tightly. "Good luck."

Alfred glanced to his brother, who had already stood up and was waiting impatiently for him. "Thank you sir; I think I'm gonna need it."

WIth that the assembly broke, the humans leaving fairly quickly and leaving just Matthew and Alfred in the room. Before the Canadian could begin the rant he'd been planning since he'd heard his soldier's panic over the radio, his brother turned to him and in short order closed the gap between them, pulling him into a tight hug.

"He was going to blow us up, Mattie," He whispered, sounding so angry and terrified the Canadian forgot his own for a minute. "He was just going to shove the nuke back through and blow up all those men and women and you, and I knew after he did that he was going to come here with his ship and hurt so many more…"

If there was one thing that terrified any Nation, it was their people being killed, especially when they were helpless to do anything. Matthew understood completely, wrapping his arms around his brother and sighing. "I'm still pissed at you for getting yourself killed, you know - I know you hate leaving people behind, but you couldn't have known you'd be able to pull off the stunts you did, and if I'd lost you for good - if the States and other Nations had lost you for good - none of us would have forgiven you no matter how many lives you saved doing it."

"How mad are they, by the way?" Alfred asked, pulling back enough to show his weak, brave-face grin when he knew he was walking into dangerous territory. "I can feel a few of them out at Gabby's place. Haven't tried to actually check in yet, but I know that's just putting off the inevitable."

"Well, Ginny's there," Matthew started, amused to see his brother so resigned to his fate already. "Bella too, along with Ben. Gabrielle hasn't said anything about the program to them yet, but they know something's up, so you're probably gonna have to come clean with them."

"Figured we'd have to come clean to them all at some point," The American sighed, letting his head fall back to his brother's shoulder. "Better now than later, I guess."

"Yeah, definitely better now after a temporary death instead of a permanent one later," Matthew replied dryly, ignoring the weak slap to the head he got for that. "C'mon, you big baby, time to face the music you wrote."

"Yeah yeah, I'm coming…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this was a long update, not that I'm complaining. Just establishing a few consequences of what went down along with plotlines for future updates to follow along. Like I said before, I'm not gonna just hand over alien tech that easy – it wouldn't be entertaining if I just handed them the means to defeat every enemy they come across right off the bat, am I right?
> 
> Next chapter should be the last I'm doing for this month – it's basically the second half of the transition into the next arc, and I still need to decide exactly what I want to have happen because there's a lot I could do but that has to be weighed alongside what I should do. I can't make shit too complicated, nor can I make it too simple, which is a hard balance but one I wanna do right, because this fic is important to me.


	28. Interlude: Opening Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel decides to go along with the colonel's visit to Catherine, and learns quite a bit more than he expected to.

"Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel looked up from the messy sprawl of translated documents in front of him, blinking several times before he realized who was actually in front of him. "Colonel Jones."

The blond looked around the room, whistling at the not small piles he had around. "This all the stuff from the pyramid?"

"It is," The archaeologist nodded, smiling as he recalled how lucky they'd been that Ra hadn't felt the need to gather up or worry about the papers and equipment left strewn around the back rooms, thus allowing them all to be gathered up before they returned.

(Of course, they'd had to go through mild sterilization just to be safe, but compared to what he'd heard all the other soldiers and scientists going through, he felt infinitely lucky he'd managed to keep his mask through the entire situation.)

"How far are you with translations now?" Jones asked, looking back to him.

"Almost a third of the way through all of them, and it completely rewrites everything we've ever known about the stories of the Egyptian gods." Daniel shook his head. "From the sounds of things, Ra wasn't the only one like himself, only the leader. I'm still not sure about this one part though - it uses 'gone', but I can't say if that means they all died or if they're just far away from us now."

He looked up just to see the colonel pale, gaze far away for a minute. "Shit, I knew I forgot something."

"Sir?" The brunet's fingers twitched. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just - something I forgot in the report. I'll have to stop by really fast to let the generals and them know." Jones shook his head, grimacing for a moment before allowing himself to relax and smile again. "That wasn't exactly what I was planning on asking you before I came in here, by the way - when do you think you'll be done with your translation work for the day?"

Daniel blinked. "Maybe an hour before one of the others tries to get me to eat dinner, I think. Why?"

"Well," The colonel grinned, looking both embarrassed and conspiratory. "I was actually planning on going out to town for dinner and checking in on Catherine and her fiance while I was out there anyways, so I thought, since she really seemed to take a shine to you, if you might wanna come along and say hi or something."

The idea didn't sound too bad, especially since he hadn't really seen grass or trees or anything of the sort in… wow, had it been a month now? Even the Egypt digs had had a few trees and plants to break up the sand - Abydos had barely had a few shrubs, though to be fair they had only seen a small part of the entire planet, and the people had to get their fruits and animals somewhere.

"I think that's alright," Daniel decided, smiling as he set down the paper he was holding. "But I thought she wasn't part of the program anymore. Won't you get in trouble with command if you tell her anything?"

Jones raised an eyebrow, grin not dropping. "She was one of the founders of the program, and she's known about the ring for longer than any of the rest of us, so I say it's fair she at least gets to know exactly what was on the other side of the tablet address. It's not like we're gonna be telling her anything about what went down, just about the people and stuff, so I'm pretty sure they won't be too angry…"

"If you say so," Daniel replied doubtfully, hoping that the man, as friendly and open to his work as he was, wouldn't end up in a heap of trouble for this. Actually, that reminded him-

"I'll see you in about an hour by the elevator then?" Jones asked, already making his way out the door again.

"Yes, sir," Daniel sighed, figuring he could just ask about the oracle woman later, since he hadn't had much of a chance to speak with her while the Colonel had managed several conversations. Only after the door clicked shut did he go back to his translations, momentarily distracting himself again as he double checked the next strip against his books.

~0~0~

Just over an hour later, Daniel blinked as he watched the sun set over something that wasn't sand from his seat in the Colonel's car (actually his friend's car, but those were apparently semantics). His body had just begun the slow process of adapting to the absurdly long days on Abydos before they'd returned, meaning that while his inner clock said it was still mid afternoon, his brain was convinced by the darkening sky that it was far later than that, especially accounting for it being winter.

(What season had it been on that other world anyways? Did it even have seasons?)

"Nice to be home, isn't it?" Jones asked, drawing him from his thoughts sharply.

"I lived my life out on various digs with my parents, so I can't really say I've ever had much of a home."

"Yeah, I guess that can make it a bit trickier," The soldier sympathized, sending a glance and a smile his way. "Still, I missed it here, even though I really enjoyed the mission, asides from, y'know, that last day."

Daniel smiled back despite himself. "I guess having access to showers and non rationed food again is nice, though it's weird seeing snow patches around."

"You're telling me; going from summer to winter again is just crazy." Jones shook his head.

"I'm just glad I still have my antihistamines," Daniel replied. "Otherwise I'd be sneezing up a storm right now."

"You're just lucky you didn't have to go through all the blood tests and swabs and shit I did; I won't be able to look at a needle for weeks, man."

"I can't imagine the Abydonians are having it much better; they don't have anything like the medicine theories we do, and from what I've heard they're still trying to wrap their heads around the idea of tiny animals making you sick instead of bad spirits or curses."

"The only reason they trust us is because of what we did for them," Jones nodded. "Otherwise they wouldn't accept all the blood tests and vaccinations and everything else we've been giving them too, since we sort of accidentally exposed them at the end there."

"It was going to happen at some point," Daniel shrugged. "It's happened a lot in history when two cultures meet, only this time we actually know and care enough to try and stop it before it begins."

"Yeah, that's definitely a plus."

The archaeologist hummed in agreement, mind drifting to earlier as he frowned. Now seemed like as good a time as any to ask, since they were still a distance away along the backroad route the colonel was taking. "By the way, what did you speak with the oracle about?"

"Hmm?" The colonel asked, not glancing over to him. "You mean in the chamber, or after?"

"Well, both, I guess," Daniel shrugged. "I only spoke with her for a bit after you left, and she didn't really share much aside from the address and a bit on the story of Ra, so…"

"Well, the first time we spoke, she just wanted to know about us and where we came from and stuff, since we obviously weren't from around there. I explained about the gate and stuff, and she realized what I was talking about and decided to show me the address back since she knew Ra was coming soon. Ended up reading Ra's tale and having her explain it to be right before, well, I had to go."

Daniel remembered that, along with the odd behavior, but said nothing for the moment.

"As for that other time… I was really just explaining what we'd be able to offer in the near future for her and her people should they be interested, and what we'd want in return if everything goes well."

"Like?"

"Well, at least a small base of operations to hold the archaeology teams, medical teams, military teams, and whoever else is gonna be needed there to deal with our operations there. We'll want access to the mines for whatever substance is there, free exploration rights over the rest of the planet, and control over the Stargate since we'll be using it a lot."

Daniel frowned. "And what are they getting in return? Glass beads? Some water barrels?"

"We aren't in the seventeenth century anymore," Jones replied dryly. "Water and food is just a start - a school for them to learn to read and write their own language has been tossed around a lot, along with whatever else they wanna learn as long as it's not deemed too dangerous. In a few years command will probably decide whether to offer them positions in the SGC on missions and such."

"That's-" The brunet blinked, sitting back as he thought all that over. "Huh. That's actually a fair enough trade. What about after that?"

The colonel shrugged. "Depends on what happens between now and then and past that. If the program ever goes public - which I don't doubt it eventually will - we'll probably end up having to determine whether they're allowed a seat on the UN or if something else will have to be provided for them. Hard to say, though, because the case is sorta unprecedented for multiple reasons."

"I can imagine," Daniel noted, glancing to their side as they pulled over to the side of the road, stopped before a small house that seemed fairly similar to those around it. "We're here already?"

"They're still under watch due to potential health problems Dr. Littlefield might have now that he's back on Earth, so they live fairly close to the base." Jones explained as he turned the car off, pocketing the keys before leaving the car.

Daniel followed behind, eager to see his pseudo-mentor again, adjusting his glasses as he waited for her to answer the door. She didn't seem surprised to see them, instead smiling and waving them inside before closing the door behind them.

"It's nice to see you both again," She greeted as they followed her into the living room, waiting for them to sit before doing the same. Dr. Littlefield was already there, looking remarkably healthier and more energetic than he had back at Heliopolis. "I must say, I wasn't expecting to get another visit like this after my official retirement."

"Well, it's not exactly official business we're here on," Jones chuckled, kicking back with a smile. "How've you two been?"

"We've been getting used to living together again," She replied wistfully, smile on her face as she glanced to her fiance. "It's easy to forget the little things after so long, but so far there haven't been any large issues."

"That's good," He smiled, leaning forward. "We've had an interesting month as well - Abydos was quite the place. Sorta like Egypt, actually, at least the parts we've seen so far."

"Is that the name of the place, then?" She asked, leaning forward in interest. "What were the people there like?"

"Surprisingly, human. Apparently they migrated there a long time ago, and just sorta maintained their culture up to now. Real friendly, all things told."

"Really now?" She pressed a finger to her lip in thought, glancing over to Daniel thoughtfully. "What do you think of them, Daniel?"

"Ah," He replied, trying not to bring up anything about the danger they faced. "Their food was interesting."

"You mean the huge lizards?" Jones grinned, shaking his head. "Things were as big as a komodo dragon; dunno where they got it from. Shame we couldn't try it, but that's command for ya."

"It sounds like quite the tale," She smiled. "Why don't you tell us more about it over dinner, if you're planning on staying that is?"

"I guess we can stay if you're down with that," The colonel replied, tapping his fingers on his lap thoughtfully. "Before you go do that, though, there's something I should be honest with you guys about ,since it'll probably make a few details of the story clearer."

Daniel raised an eyebrow, glancing to an equally concerned Catherine who in turn shared a look with her fiance. "Yes?"

He smiled, straightening himself up as he looked between all of them. "I've introduced myself to all of you as Alfred F. Jones, presidential aide and Air Force colonel. That's not entirely the truth. My actual name..."

His grin, if anything, grew a bit wider. "is the United States of America."

None of them responded for a long minute, trying to parse exactly what he said. "By that, you mean…"

"I'm the living, breathing embodiment of the country and its people, and have been since I was born way back in the mid 1600s."

Catherine sucked in a small breath. "Wait, that wasn't your grandfather at those digs, then."

He chucked and tipped an imaginary hat. "I've always had a passion for archaeology, but can only get away to do it every so often between meetings and paperwork. Same with space related stuff, and since the Stargate Program is basically both now, I've really gotten into it."

Daniel frowned as a thought struck him. "Does that make that oracle woman…"

"-The personification of Abydos, otherwise known as pre-Ancient Egypt. As in she was there when her people went through in the first place."

That was… incredibly strange to imagine. "And your brother…"

"Yeah, not hard to guess, right? Considering there's only two countries currently part of the program and I'm one of them."

"Why don't people know about this?" Daniel boggled, thinking of everything he could have learned from a being old enough to have actually been alive then. "Can you imagine how much help that'd be to archaeologists in my line of work?"

Jones smiled sadly, sighing. "Think about it - what do you think people would do if they knew the actual embodiments of countries like Germany, China, hell, any of the Soviet countries existed? There are still a lot of people who remember the second World War, and more who remember the Cold War, Vietnam, Korea…"

"I…" Daniel trialed off, exchanging looks with Catherine as they started to realize what that'd do.

"People who didn't hate us would see us as celebrities, and for all we burden the weights of our people we're also human, and none of us exactly want to live in the spotlight indefinitely or be forced out into the middle of nowhere just to get away from everything."

There was a stretch of silence as they mulled that over, Dr. Littlefield finally speaking up for the first time since they'd arrived. "Do you know what happened to my brother, then? No one I asked ever told me…"

Jones said nothing for a moment, seeming lost in his thoughts before he directed his attention back to the man with a small smile. "Yeah, I do - you wanna hear it?"

"Please."

(It was rather hard to doubt him after that. Still, it answered quite a few things he'd been wondering, and he was more than a bit touched - and surprised - to be trusted to know such a thing.

Hopefully he'd be able to live up to it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this came out even longer than the last one, but I guess that's what happens when the characters keep on talking and you can't find a good stopping point that doesn't cut out stuff you actually want on-screen. I'm pretty happy Alfred was able to come clean to them, though – it'll hopefully let me do some interesting things in the future that otherwise might not be possible, but we'll see.
> 
> Next chapter starts the new arc, and though I haven't planned out any of it asides from vague ideas that have yet to solidify in any way, I really hope to make it just as awesome as Abydos, or at least just as long. We'll see, though...


	29. Serpent's Curse: Crisis of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred lets his alien friend know of his recent exploits, and things get worse from there.

Alfred could have simply Walked his way home from the airport after saying his goodbyes to Ginny, but he'd needed to pick up his old pickup truck from the base anyways, and the day had just been so nice that he couldn't help but indulge himself in the trip.

He would never admit it out loud, but he knew - and likely most of his States did as well - that there was something special about the back roads and undeveloped lands of Virginia that just couldn't be beat. Maybe it was the mountains in the distance, a majestic frame to the horizon. Maybe it was the rolling foothills with its wild grasses and untamed woods. Maybe it was the sunny skies, still free of the industrial world that touched so much of his lands.

Of course, it could just be because to him, it was home.

He hummed along to the radio, one hand on the wheel while the other rested in the open window, the cool breeze ruffling his hair. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed the feeling of his land around him, warm and welcoming and familiar, until he'd left it on its own for a month. It of course barely noticed the time that had passed, its changes measured in centuries and millennia instead of months and years, but the welcome back was pleasant all the same.

Turning off of the paved road he'd been driving until then onto the dirt road to his colonial home, Alfred found himself thinking about his adventure. There was no doubt it'd been hazardous and stressful, but at the same time he'd gone to another world, had walked on lands that only knew one Nation, and had come through everything victorious and with new friends to boot.

He didn't regret it for a single moment, even if he agreed with his brother that  _maybe_  it should be left to their people for the most part. At least until they found other Nations out there, wherever they might be in the galaxy.

He couldn't wait for that day.

Alfred's truck pulled up before the small mansion, the personification noting that there were lights on up in Tony's part of the house. Since he couldn't sense any intruders - not that they would be this far out in the middle of nowhere or could even get in the front door thanks to Tony's security system - he guessed that his alien friend was finally home from his big conference out in whichever galaxy his people lived in.

Well, they'd both been gone for a long time - himself for a month and Tony for more than a year - so maybe they could have a 'we're back on Earth together' party or something. That might be a fun way to relax for the week or so before he had to get back to his DC paperwork.

Ulgh, no, don't think about that now, think about cool stuff instead. Like the latest episodes of Star Trek he'd missed. Oh man, he hoped Bella had recorded those for him, or else he'd have to wait for the reruns and that could be  _months_  from now.

Alfred let himself into the house on that note, still humming as he dumped his bags in the hallways and made his way to the kitchen. He really needed to see what was still good to eat and what needed to be thrown out before he went shopping, and since he wanted dinner anyways, it was an easy first decision to make.

Besides, if Tony hadn't heard his car pull up, he'd certainly smell Alfred's cooking before too long.

And lo and behold, the alien made his way into the kitchen just as Alfred was finishing up the mac n cheese he'd grabbed from the pantry, settling down into his seat while looking over his electronic touch pad.

(The Nation really hoped his people would be able to replicate that sort of technology one day soon, because he'd been allowed to mess with it a few times and found it super convenient and easy to use.)

"Hey there Tony," Alfred greeted as he filled two bowls and brought them over to the table, offering one of them to his friend. "How was that conference thing?"

"As tedious as always," The alien sighed, setting his pad down in order to start eating. "At least I won't have to worry about it again for at least another ten years."

"Dude, I wish we only had to meet that often, but that's life for you," The American started digging into his own food, still enamored with the taste of things that weren't MREs of some sort. "You guys make any progress on the thing?"

"Sadly, no," Tony shook his head. "We've exhausted most of our leads at this point."

"That sucks," Alfred replied, frowning before something struck him. "Wait, I just remembered, there's this new program my people have started which is totally cool and might just help out with that!"

"Oh?" The alien replied, raising a nonexistent eyebrow. "I didn't think Earth's technology had progressed all that much in my absence."

"Well, it's sorta not our tech?" The Nation shrugged, resulting in Tony raising his other brow. "But yeah, a while back some of my people found this really old stone ring, only apparently it's not stone but some substance tougher than anything on Earth."

Tony stared at him unblinkingly.

"Yeah, sounds weird, but we started messing around with it a bit and found out it can generate stable wormholes that connect to other rings on other worlds hundreds of lightyears away. The first place we found was these old ruins, but way higher tech than anything on Earth except the Rings themselves, and the guy who'd been stuck told us all about the computer he'd found there and how the place was called-"

"Heliopolis."

Alfred blinked at his friend. "Yeah, actually, how'd you know that?"

"My people helped build the place with our allies nearly three million years ago," Tony replied quietly. "We contributed the primary computer system that allowed for data storage and transfer, as well as allowed common communications among the four of us."

Now it was Alfred's turn to stare at his friend. He'd known his friend's people had probably been around for a while considering they could travel between galaxies like it was nothing, but millions of years…?

"I'm surprised it still stands; it's been abandoned since the alliance fell apart."

"It's close to it, honestly," The Nation replied, still half distracted by just how far ahead his friend's people had to be, yet they were still struggling to keep themselves together. What did that say about humanity's chances of growing past most of their troubles? "The engineers who've taken a look at the place say it's only a few years until part of it slides into the ocean, possibly taking out the gate and computer with it."

"Mmm, a shame. I know our ancestors regarded the place fondly."

"I guess it wouldn't have much of anything to help you guys out, then?"

"I'm afraid it's unlikely; our genetic issues are very recent, and we've long lost contact with the other races who might have been able to help."

"That sucks," Alfred sympathized. "What happened to them?"

Tony shrugged, a gesture he'd picked up from Alfred over the decades. "The Alterans have for the most part moved on, but the other two… we cannot say; the last time either spoke to us was fifty thousand years ago, though to our fault we did not push to keep in contact either."

The Nation nodded. "I guess that happens no matter how advanced you are, huh? Might've been cool to meet them, too; all the records that we've pulled from the place on you guys so far sound incredible."

"I assure you, our own records of the meetings show that even when we were allies we tended to argue a fair bit on just about everything. The unfortunate thing about dealing with such different species is that morals and progression oftentimes clash."

"Tell me about it," Alfred shook his head. "First aliens we meet turns out to be a huge asshole; I mean, he's dead now, but still, asshole."

Tony frowned. "Aliens? I thought you went to Heliopolis - no developing or developed species I know of has gone near there by way of ship in almost a million years."

"Oh, this wasn't Heliopolis, it was a different place. There was this coverstone with the gate, you see, but we couldn't figure out the symbols until we brought in Dr. Jackson, who noticed that the symbols on the gate were different from those the others saw and helped us figure out the whole coordinate system the gate actually uses.

"Anyways, we went through with the address and found ourselves on this desert planet with this dislocated group of people whose ancestors actually came from Egypt a long time ago, and get this, there was a personification there, too! She told me stuff about her folk's history, then this jerk calling himself Ra showed up and kidnapped the people who had stayed behind to guard the gate."

"Ra?" The alien choked out, looking more freaked out than Alfred could almost ever recall. "How did you even get away from him?"

"Ah, I didn't? I went back to rescue my people and ended up caught by him, but we were able to make a break for it when he got driven off by the local's rebellion and we blew his ship up."

"...blew his ship up?"

"Yeah, sucked that I had to use a nuke, but I mean the people were really grateful to be freed and- Tony what are you-"

The alien had stood rapidly, grabbing his tablet and frantically tapping commands into it. "I'll explain on the way, but if what you say is true, I'm afraid you might be in for a very difficult time ahead."

"What do you mea-" The rest of Alfred's sentence was cut off as he and Tony were teleported up to the alien's ship, which soon started making a beeline for the edge of the solar system.

Meanwhile, several thousand miles from where they'd just been speaking, something stirred. It did not have awareness, not quite yet, but it knew enough to know something was wrong, and thousands of years of genetic memories told it exactly what to do in such situations.

Escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back with the third arc of four for this particular story! And yes, I have in fact read up on Stargate canon and decided that, fuck it since I'm already planning on altering other things down the line, I can just tweak some things right now as well. Changes will come into play; they aren't just for the heck of it.
> 
> Anyways, despite the focus, this arc is in no way about Alfred – it's in fact getting him out of the way so that he can't mess up my plans. Muahahahahah...


	30. Serpent's Curse: The Ninth Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows you never turn your back on the body. Except Teryl, apparently.

Teryl Rothery was familiar with looking after injured soldiers, having been a military doctor for just shy of ten years at this point. Since she'd been hired onto the Giza Project (actually, the Stargate Program after Dr. Jackson's contributions to the success of the Abydos mission), she'd seen many of the same injuries as those on any home soil base, leaving her feeling comfortable even with the massive shift in her life the move from California had taken on her.

Even hundreds of lightyears from home, combat situations never really changed.

Right now, though, she was on the team tasked with keeping their newly acquired prisoners alive, if entirely displeased with their current situation. She wasn't versed in the language like Dr. Jackson and a few other people on base (now expanding as people and supplies were moved around in order to take advantage of their new offworld location), but she'd been told enough to understand that these were the same sort of religious fanatics that one could find in any other religion on Earth.

It made their stubborn refusal to speak to anyone more understandable, along with their refusal to touch the food or drink provided to them. They… seemed to be avoiding any nasty side effects so far, but until the medical team could get reliable blood samples (those from the dead were showing odd anomalies no one could explain quite yet) and actually test them for disease, there was no way to be sure until they started exhibiting symptoms or just fell over dead.

That is to say, if they were even human. Their physiology was certainly similar enough, and the aliens had had humans under their control for at least ten thousand years, but if they just made that assumption and then found out they were just very convincing aliens in truth, then things would be far more awkward. After all, similar things had happened on Earth with wildly divergent species developing to look a lot like each other, so who was to say the universe hadn't decided to play a joke like that on them?

Teryl shook her head, deciding pulling all nighters in order to make sure all of her reports on their progress or lack of progress were written out clearly enough for the new general of the base was probably not the best idea, but she'd gotten them done, so maybe she would get a break after everything had started settling into a routine again.

(Maybe she should have taken on a more relaxing job, like that one position she'd been offered in the middle east right before this one.)

Not that this wasn't ultimately an amazing opportunity, but having to be one of the ones literally inventing the book on offworld medical policy made the whole thing a bit less glamorous than what any future textbooks would say about it.

Sighing, she put the last of her notes down, wishing she was done but still having one more task for the day before she was allowed to break for dinner and then head home.

Thankfully, her destination was only a few rooms down, though it took time to don the sterile face mask, gloves, and boot covers that would protect the important corpses inside from too much more exposure to bacteria and other contaminants. They hadn't yet gotten permission to run a full series of tests on the bodies, though her report would probably fix that, meaning for now they were, to make a terrible pun, chilling for a while.

She was the only one in there right now - she'd come a bit early to the meeting to help prepare for the autopsy once it was approved, mostly to get away from the paperwork and partially because she hadn't really had a chance to examine the bodies brought back by the Abydos mission yet.

They'd been separated into two groups - those killed by conventional gunfire, and those killed by those energy weapons that had the engineers all abuzz, ready to take them apart and figure out what made them tick. Teryl had no doubts that at least a few of the proposed redesigns for the weapons would look like blasters from half a dozen science fiction movies, simply because they could.

Walking over to the former group's beds, she pulled the dark sheet away, carefully scrutinizing the body as it was revealed. The bullet wounds themselves were obvious, if a bit smaller than she remembered those of the caliber the team had been using generally were. Going further, she paused, looking down at the x-shaped incision on the middle of the belly.

It wasn't a fresh wound either - the skin around the edges was smooth, making it look natural enough that she wondered if the man might not have been born with it, or at least gotten it at a young age. But for what purpose?

SHe didn't think much about pressing a finger to the skin, finding some resistance until she reached the divide itself, which gave way to reveal it wasn't just an unusual scar - it was an opening. Some sort of pouch? For what purpose, though? And did that mean they weren't human after all, or was that just to sort of thing Ra's species was capable of?

She leaned closer, using her finger to press back to flap a bit further to see if she could peer inside, but quickly met resistance, and she pulled back quickly. Maybe it was just a very deliberate scar then; either way, she'd learn more in the following days.

She turned her back on the body, intending to clean off the glove she'd pressed into the corpse, which probably wasn't the best idea when she'd failed to properly cover it back up.

She didn't really have time to realize it was a mistake, though, because the snake-like symbiote had taken the intrusion as sign of an opportunity, and didn't hesitate in making the relatively short jump from nest to host.

Thus, Teryl Rothery ceased to be, and Apepmose awoke properly for the first time.

' _Too soon_ ,' was its first thought once it'd fully integrated itself into the brain, it's precisely engineered form instantly sending out the tiny bursts of electricity that would allow it to access the neural pathways that made up the human brain. Memories were, after all, just a series of chemical and electrical alterations to the brain cells and the connections between them, accessible to any creature with the capability of understanding such signals intuitively.

However, with its awareness came the quick calculation of its own age, along with the half-there memories that told it it wasn't fully mature yet; at least another fifty years by this planet's standards should have passed before it considered leaving its protector's pouch. It was weaker than an adult still, more vulnerable, and - it shot another burst out, drawing in more memories - the humans here had already proven hostile, seeing as they were the reason its guard was now dead.

How dare mere slaves treat their overlords like this? Only… these weren't slaves, not yet anyways, and how its progenitor, or indeed any of the goa'uld, had missed them was hard to believe, but that could easily be fixed once it escaped and reported it to the System Lords. Oh yes, it would be greatly rewarded for such a prize, perhaps enough to be given its own slaves and guards despite its youth.

However, that meant escaping first, and Apepmose knew that the people here would not willingly submit to it no matter what it threatened. Thankfully, it didn't need to rely on mere slave fodder, for much more useful - and willing - protection was just down the hall from here. How to get them out, though?

The symbiote unconsciously copied its body's natural 'thinking' pose, pressing a gloved thumb to her frown as it thought. Due to its immaturity, not all of the genetic memories passed down from its progenitor had set in, leaving it bereft of quite a bit of the knowledge that might have assisted it in this matter.

Its host, however, ended up having just the knowledge - and the training - it needed. Perhaps there was a use for a 'weaker' body, after all; no one would consider 'Teryl' to be a potential infiltrator, especially since she was well liked among these humans. All it really needed was one opportunity, one chance to break the guards free to protect it while it put in one of the addresses it 'knew' in order to get itself back to their proper place in the universe.

On top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaand if anyone at all was surprised by this plot twist I hinted at last chapter, don't be, because I mean I /did/ bring it up a lot in Abydos and I had Alfred get the warning specifically, so obviously I had to follow through! The name of the woman is Janet Fraiser's actress, while the goa'uld is something I tossed together myself based on other names I saw.
> 
> To note, my goa'uld are gonna be a bit different from the series – no glowy eyes, for one, because it simply never made sense in any context I could think of tbh. Second, I decided their memory access worked by basically infiltrating the brain's communication system and basically making sure IT sends commands out instead, which also has the side effect of 'suppressing' the primary consciousness.
> 
> Finally, I decided that the larva take about two hundred or so years to mature in their pouches, which will in this 'verse about match the average lifespan of a Jaffa. So basically a Jaffa will have the same goa'uld from birth to death, wherein the mature larva will be taken and given a host. Since all Jaffa have symbiotes throughout sexual maturity, their legacy of immune disorders makes a heck of a ton of sense.


	31. Serpent's Curse: Usurpers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some technobabble about space and the Gate while waiting for the plot to really kick off.

Sam glanced over the documents in her hand as she made her way towards General Hammond's office, making sure she hadn't missed something in the R&D reports she'd collected from the rest of the team. Sure, she wasn't officially part of R&D since her main job was the delicate reprogramming and improvement of the Stargate systems, but she was in there enough to help tinker with the energy staves and write some notes and ideas to go along with the report.

(It was a bit embarrassing, but not unexpected, that she was one of only two to not already be submitting designs that looked suspiciously like the blasters or phasers from Star Wars or Star Trek respectively.)

She sighed, grateful that this was the last thing she had to do before she was allowed to grab dinner and retreat to her onbase cot. She wouldn't be seeing her above-ground flat for at least another week, but the cot was comfortable enough that she could get rest, which was all that really mattered.

In full honesty, she couldn't imagine a better life than what she had right now. She was at the forefront of a new frontier, playing with technology so far beyond comprehension that she knew even the combined efforts of herself and Dr. McKay wouldn't come close to cracking all the mysteries and secrets behind the gate system, much less make a dent in the data from Heliopolis. It was a giddying experience being at the beginning of history, and she felt more fulfilled than NASA would have ever provided.

(Not that that wouldn't have been her second choice if the Stargate had never been recovered, but in her heart she already knew it would have never been the same sort of thrill she got whenever she saw the wormhole inside the ring form so violently only to settle into its mesmerising pool.)

Now if only there was a way to break that idea to her father gently, without breaking the secrecy behind the entire thing…

Sam blinked out of her thoughts as she bumped into someone, the grumbling 'sorry' from the other person enough to clue her in as to who it was even before she turned to them with a grin. "Hey, Teryl."

"Hey Sam," The doctor smiled back, though her was a tension around her eyes that dimmed Sam's own.

"Are you okay?" She asked her friend, closing the folder in her hands. "You look stressed."

"Just a headache," Her friend promised. "I think I had too much coffee today, and it's just catching up to me now."

"We've all been working hard over the past few weeks," Sam agreed, resting a hand on Teryl's shoulder briefly. "Hopefully some aspirin and rest will help."

"So do I; I'm heading to the infirmary now to get some before I get something to eat, so that it's kicked in by the time I crawl into bed."

Sam laughed softly. "I'm probably going to do the same after I report to the General. You wanna catch up more tomorrow before our shifts start?"

Teryl smiled, some of the tension in her body loosening. "I'd love that, Sam; meet you in the cafeteria at eight?"

"It's a date."

The captain watched her friend continue down the hall to the infirmary for a moment before turning back to her own task. Thankfully the General's office wasn't much farther, the guard there announcing her to the two inside before waving her in.

Colonel O'Neill nodded his head in greeting, which she returned with a brief salute to both men.

"I've brought all the reports from R&D, sir, along with their requests."

"Already planning their ray guns?" The colonel asked, drawing a brief grin from Sam and the General before it settled.

"There's seventeen experimental models awaiting approval for development so far, sir," She reported casually, holding back most of the smile in response to the grin on the colonel's own.

"I believe a few people will need to see the papers before anything is approved, but I applaud the initiative," General Hammond replied, accepting the folders from her and starting to page through them.

"Of course, sir," Sam agreed easily. "As well, the team's main discovery with the armor is that it's an alloy whose main ingredient is nothing found on Earth. It's not the same material as the Stargate exactly, but we believe it has a similar chemical element or two to it that will likely be found in the mines on Abydos."

"Access to the mines is already being negotiated with the locals; they're willing to let us do most of the work, but they still want to watch us with our own equipment. The material will initially be tested for volatility on Abydos, so as to ascertain what containment and transportation procedures are necessary, but R&D, as well as Area 51 and the other organizations bookmarked for access, will likely see some of it on Earth within a few months."

Sam nodded, figuring that would be the case. She wasn't sure whether the team assigned to the initial testing was lucky or not; it would likely depend on whether there ended up being an accident during the early phases of testing.

"Will the weapons need that material to work?" Colonel O'Neill asked, having so far resisted the urge to step over to the desk and examine the paperwork himself.

"The current designs aren't relying on it, as we don't know the substance's full properties yet," She replied. "I'm sure once we know how it'll react when focusing light and high temperatures, it'll find its way into them somehow."

"As long as it doesn't make them blow up," The colonel quipped.

"That would be an issue, yes," The general nodded, looking back down to the sheets before looking up to her. "You said that the armor shares some elements with the Stargate?"

"It has the same heavy elements; 138, 142, and 145. The structures and concentrations of them in relation to more common substances like carbon or silicon is different, but if the mine material is rich in those, it could be a component in the creation of both."

"I doubt we'll be creating new Stargates anytime soon, but it might be worth looking into at some point."

"Of course, sir."

The general closed the folder again, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his desk. "Speaking of that, how is progress on finding other stable addresses?"

"Not good, sir," She replied with a wince. "I'm sure that the stellar drift algorithms are working fine, but I think we simply don't have enough power."

"We have four generators powering it, as well as four backup generators in case the first four stop working."

"I know sir, but that only gets us out to a maximum limit of five hundred light years. We haven't had luck finding other worlds within that range, though I and the rest of my team estimate there should be around nineteen hundred gates we can access from Earth."

"Nineteen hundred?" Hammond's eyebrows went up, as well as the colonel's.

"There are approximately two million stars within five hundred light years; even assuming there's only one stargate per one thousand star systems - possibly chosen for worlds that can support human or human-friendly life - that's still an upper bound of two thousand gates within range. Accounting for whatever damages might have happened to same gates since they were created, we came to a rough estimate of nineteen hundred gates that should theoretically be accessible to us right now."

Both men remained silent for a long moment, likely marvelling over the idea that even with their limitations they had that many worlds available to them. Sam simply smiled; the calculations for all of that had been challenging, but at the same time satisfying.

"How many gates would you estimate for the galaxy as a whole, then?" Colonel O'Neill asked, turning back to her with wide eyes.

"Around three hundred million at most," She replied instantly.

"Are there even that many addresses available?" The general asked.

"If every address has to be comprised of six unique symbols, not accounting for the home point, then there are about two billion possible addresses to choose from. Even with supercomputers calculating the most likely addresses to work, that's still only a nine in ten million chance of actually finding a functional address at random."

The colonel whistled at the numbers. "What're the chances with the fancy collection of addresses from Heliopolis?"

Sam smiled. "We think the gate there is powered by something that gives it a much longer range, so most of those are still far outside of our reach for now. Still, since all of those are valid addresses as far as we're aware, it's upped the chances to around six in a million."

"So what you're saying is that we need better generators," The general finally decided once he'd wrapped his head around those numbers.

"That would help sir, but I don't think just adding on another dozen will help much. I'm fairly sure the gates can use almost any energy source available, but the more potent they are, the better the range, since the initial burst of energy is what creates the wormhole. We'd need a fission generator to get the energy needed for a significant increase at the least, barring future discoveries of more potent fuels."

"I see," General Hammond replied, sighing as he closed his eyes. "I'll see if we can get the Heliopolis team to look through the archives for a better fuel source, as well as a generator that can handle the higher output from it."

"Thank you sir," Sam replied with a salute. "If we happen to find anything-"

The alarms went off about then, startling all three of them before they let themselves settle into battle ready mindsets. Worries over the gate could come later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I checked the numbers so all of that is pretty accurate, at least in terms of star numbers and distribution. Thankfully I didn't have to actually calculate the number of stars within five hundred lightyears of us because others have already done the calculations for me!
> 
> (For those curious, the actual number of stars in range is about 1.875 million, which would have the upper bound be around 1875 gates with Sam's calculations. That's not including stuff like brown dwarves or anything, just main sequence stars and the like.)
> 
> As things stand, 300 million gates is a bit much to actually have around the galaxy, even with the ancients having close to 50 million years in the galaxy to colonize and build the gates and such. Since my friend pointed out that some of the material could be hard to get, I'm bumping down the numbers by a factor of a hundred, which has the Milky Way holding around three million gates in total. That bumps the number of gates within the Earth Range Bubble to nineteen, which seems a lot more manageable, though harder to actually find with the millions of options available.


	32. Serpent's Curse: The Abyssal Depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author finally returns and things don't get better.

Teryl startled awake, head pounding with an even greater ferocity than it had before she'd… dozed off? Hard to believe she'd managed it with how achy she was feeling all over, especially with the footsteps pounding in step with her head-

Then she realized she wasn't in the med bay anymore, but walking down the corridor towards the Stargate, the prisoners marching around her like a prison guard… or an honor guard. She stumbled and was ready to scream, only for - _something_ \- to paralyze her throat and force her legs to keep moving steadily. Her fingers started to reach for her gun before they, too, were compromised, clenching into a fist at her side instead.

' _What's going on?'_ She thought with growing panic. ' _Why are they out? Why aren't they attacking me? And why can't I do anything?'_

' _ **Slaves do not ask questions,'**_ another voice in her head, one that was most certainly not hers, replied with a snarl. ' _ **Back to the depths with you!'**_

Something shoved her down, dulling her own perception of the world to near nothingness before she started pushing back, refusing to give up to - whatever the fuck was controlling her. ' _I am not a slave, and I won't let you control me!'_

' _ **BEGONE!'**_

She could only stab one last time before darkness overwhelmed her, but allowed herself to fade with the grim satisfaction that at least whatever was controlling her would now have to deal with her headache.

Apepmose grimaced, resisting the urge to rub at her head and show weakness before its new Jaffa. Fortunately, these ones were well trained enough to not comment on whatever oddities their god might show, and would certainly never dare to ask if anything was wrong.

Damn that slave woman; once they were gone and safe she would make certain the woman knew the price of resistance. The goa'uld could already hear the mental screams of her future victim, and allowed herself a smile before the damnable headache washed it away. If only she'd been older, there'd've been no need to put such effort into suppressing this damnable body!

Even with the trouble, though, the body had more than proven its worth. As she'd thought, no one had suspected 'Teryl' to be capable of treachery, and so had let her get close enough to the guards keeping her from her Jaffa in order to incapacitate them. The show of force had also conveniently proved her divinity to the six, meaning less time wasted converting them to her own cause.

Not to mention as she gain more of her body's memories, her ability to deceive the future slave fodder around her increased. Acting the 'concerned' prisoner had stalled more than one group of would-be rescuers long enough for her guard to take them out, their recovered armor more than capable of handling the mere handguns most of them kept on hand.

Still, every minute wasted increased the chances they would bring in the more deadly weapons her host knew. Chemicals might not hinder her or her guards long, but there were still the 'armor-piercing' rounds to consider, as well as the 'frag grenades' that had apparently taken out Jaffa before.

Apepmose sneered. Whatever advantages these slaves had, they would not stop her, not when they misguidedly thought they could still 'save' her. And even if they'd taken down Ra before her, they'd only managed such with what was easily seen as their most powerful weapon, and by surprise at that. She, on the other hand, was fully aware of their capabilities and the fact that they would not use them on their own homeworld, in their own base especially.

Now all she needed was a true prisoner to work the computers attached to the Stargate. Wasn't it convenient there was one right on the way there?

~0~0~

Rodney McKay was not having a good day.

Firstly, he'd been woken up way too early by some idiots yelling right outside his room, and who hadn't even had the decency to stay put so he could yell back at them after he'd cracked open his door to glare at them. Then the coffee machine had turned out to be broken, meaning he was bereft of his caffeinated happiness until they brought in a replacement.

Then, of course, he'd entered his lab to discover someone had come in and 'cleaned a bit', leaving him scrambling through the stacks to find out where they'd put all of his papers he'd laid out in a very specific order because he'd been on track for figuring out one of the mysteries of the Stargate and now he'd lose hours trying to remember what track his tired brain had been on not eight hours ago.

As if that weren't bad enough, he'd just gotten over all of that and had finally gotten back into his groove, mumbling to himself as he shuffled papers and drew pencil lines connecting various datasets and noting anomalies and peaks on graphs, when the alarms went off. Fucking. Great.

He opened his door, flagging down one of the soldiers running past. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Prisoners escaped," The man replied, frowning heavily at being held back. "Stay in your lab and don't let anyone in until the threat is dealt with."

"What- how did they do th- hey don't shove me!" McKay complained as the man not so gently shove him into the lab and slammed the door, his steps running off as the scientist swore. "No, don't tell the scientists anything, they'll be fine."

He groaned, falling back into his seat. "And of course I have to wait for the military to clean up after their own mistakes; 'there's no way they can break out on their own' my ass! I bet they got the cheapest cells installed and the fanatics just broke the doors open. And now I can't even do my own work because of this fucking alarm!"

Despite the complaints, his fingers tapped restlessly against the chair. He'd been working here long enough to know that the people here weren't necessarily stupid, just average, especially compared to him. There were some exceptions, of course, like Dr. Carter, who he would begrudgingly admit to having some good ideas and a good instinct for what leads to follow, even if she didn't have the sheer number crunching he did. They probably wouldn't make as stupid a mistake as to get cheap-ass prison cells, especially with so much money at hand, which made the fact that the prisoners had gotten out just that much more concerning.

He bit his lip, eyes flickering around the room. If there was a chance the soldiers heading for them failed, and they did come this way, he had no way to defend himself. What was he gonna do, throw papers at them? Talk until their brains melted? He was a scientist, not a soldier!

He looked over to the side of the room, where the fire extinguisher rested in case of emergency. Hmm, there was a thought in case someone did come in - just spray them in the face and bam! Out of action! And it didn't require the messiness or good aim of a gun (not that he was BAD with them, really he wasn't, he just- wasn't the greatest fan of actually shooting things. Or people.)

He left his seat and quickly ran over, opening the case and hauling the extinguished over to his desk. Yeah, he could hide behind it, and if they came in and didn't just leave right away, he could hit them and potentially make a break for it. He'd done well enough on running portions of the participACTION competitions, and fear was a great motivator, so he'd probably make it to another safe spot before they could shoot at him.

Probably.

The minutes ticked by unbearably, the alarms still going on to let him and any other person within hearing range and possessed of two braincells to rub together know that the situation still hadn't been resolved, which was just fucking great when they should have been easy to take down without their armor or weapons available easily. Heck, hadn't the things been hidden in a different room with a code-locked panel? There's no way they could have known and gotten in without anyone catching them, right?

There was a knock on the door, startling him and a shriek out of his thoughts.

"Dr. McKay?" He heard one of the doctors - Rothery, right? - call out, her voice tinged with fear. "Are you there?"

What was she doing out in the halls? He held the extinguisher close, replying, "Yeah, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't draw the attention of those fanatics."

"I'm sorry, I'm just so scared," She replied, voice lowering. "They've taken out the medical bay… I only got away because I was late getting there and I saw them entering, and I need a place to hide…"

He grimaced, not wanting to share his hiding spot but at the same time worried she might let the escaped prisoners know where he was if she didn't leave or get in. "Yeah yeah, let me just unlock the door, alright?"

"Please hurry…"

He set the extinguisher down next to him as he messed with the lock, finally getting it open and turning the handle only to open himself up to a completely unpanicked doctor and six large, fully armored and armed, and wildly unimpressed prisoners all aiming their staves at him.

Well, fuck. His hands went up instantly, and she held an arm out to keep them from firing. Either she'd gone around the bend and somehow managed to win their loyalty, or something really, really bad was going on.

"You will come with us and activate the chappa'ai."

"And if I don't?" Rodney asked, trying to muster up some courage.

"Jaffa, hol mel." The guard's fingers tightened around their staves.

"Fine, fine, I'm coming!" He yelped, keeping his hands up as he slowly moved out of the room under the unwavering gazes of the fanatics. After they started moving he was, thankfully, allowed to lower his arms, though his mind was frantically racing as to why they'd come after him specifically. Weren't there other people who could activate the gate they could have used.

He opened his mouth to ask as such, only to be cut off with a curt, "Speak and I will not stop the Jaffa from silencing you."

Right, well that wasn't going to work. Nor would alerting the soldiers, since they were getting hit almost as soon as they rounded the corner, unable to fire when two noncombatants (or more accurately, one noncombatant and one batshit insane woman) were in their line of fire.

By the time they'd reached the gate room, they'd taken out half a dozen groups, and he could only imagine how many others had fallen on the way to his lab. One of the guards shoved him to the dialing station, which was completely bereft of people, which explained why they needed him just a bit more. "I don't even know what address you want!"

"Cygnus, Sagittarius, Cetus, Taurus, Scutum, Norma."

Swallowing, he input the commands into the station, watching as the gate activated and started spinning as commanded. Now two sets of alarms were going off, and he could feel the seconds of his life remaining as the final, home glyph locked itself in. After all, they wouldn't need him after this, would they?

Instead of locking, however, the final chevron made what sounded remarkably similar to a cancelling sound, and all the chevrons deactivated at once.

Based on the dead silence from the rest of the room, this was not a good sign at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look who's updating this about three weeks later than she said she would! I would blame college, but tbh part of me was just plain exhausted and couldn't muster the willpower to sit down and write until now. But hopefully the success of getting this out will let me grind through the rest so I can wrap this up and get to Mirror again.
> 
> I guess since we're working our way to the finale of this fic (though not the series), I'm curious as to what you guys are expecting to happen, either within the bounds of this fic or in whatever sequels might eventually pop out of the ether for me. People who get close win a fabulous prize of- absolutely nothing! Except the pride in being a good guesser and out-predicting me I guess.


	33. Serpent's Curse: Scant Selections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which General Hammond finally gets a decent plan, and Daniel gets caught up in things... again.

Lieutenant General George Samuel Hammond, newly promoted to his position as Commander of Stargate Command, was not having a very good day. With his elbows on his desk and his hands clasped in front of his face, he went over all the news, good and bad, that had been trickling into his office via radio since this mess had started.

What sort of luck did one have to have in order to have a prison break only two weeks into the job? If it hadn't been so serious, he might've laughed about it with Wallace later over drinks. Sadly, his old friend was busy working with the president to put together Homeworld Security, while he was stuck here with a defector and six alien fanatics running roughshod over his own troops because none of them were able to get clean shots without risking Dr. Rothery and Dr. McKay's lives.

He looked to the direction of the Stargate room, knowing already that he couldn't do a thing to keep them from accessing it. Maybe if Dr. McKay hadn't been with them, he could have ordered the gate dropped and the power pulled, but a prisoner, especially one as valuable to the program as the Canadian, changed the rules, as he refused to let a man die if he could prevent it.

(He quietly acknowledged it wouldn't have even been an issue with West, due to the man putting the end before the means. But, he also acknowledged, there was a reason he was in direct command of the SGC now and not him.

He just wished that reason wouldn't turn out to be a flaw instead of a benefit.)

As if to make things even more difficult, he couldn't even get in contact with America, who would have been able to not only verify whether Dr. Rothery was doing this of her own free will or not, but also disable her and her guard provided a few level headed soldiers and the right moment. Not even his emergency contacts to the President, Virginia, or Canada had managed to locate him, which could have meant a lot of things, but in that moment meant he was effectively on his own, with what limited resources and information he had.

Two of those resources were in the room with him now, thinking over the situation from their own angles. Colonel O'Neill, stone faced and rigidly posed, was likely calculating the odds of various ambushes and tactics to bring down the squad without too much injury to Dr. McKay, while Captain Carter was biting her lip nearly hard enough to draw blood as she minutely shifted on her feet, more than likely worried about the odds of being able to chase after the group should they successfully dial out.

"Sir, if you give me Danson, Reilley, Ferretti, and a few of the extra staves, and I can-"

"Denied, Colonel," Hammond cut off, seeing where the plan and going and wishing he could authorize it. "Unless you can guarantee me you'd be able to knock them all out before they kill Doctors McKay and Rothery, I'm not sending you after them. They've already taken out several dozen soldiers, and we can't afford to lose your experience right now."

"Sir, what if they brought flash grenades?" The captain asked. "It'd stun the guards long enough for the colonel and his team to take them out provided that whatever let them recover from being stunned doesn't also work for those…"

Hammond glanced back to O'Neill just in time for the man's reply of, "That won't work; not only will Dr. McKay probably fail to realize what it is in time to cover himself, those are the same enemies we pulled that trick on before - they'll probably be expecting it and have those head masks of their filter it. Not to mention if Dr. Rothery has gone traitor-"

"She's not a traitor!" Carter shot back, looking very much like she wished she could provide a solid defense while also acknowledging she had no actual evidence at the time.

"She might be, or she might not be," O'Neill replied shortly. "It's possible that the same sort of being that was posing as Ra might be at work here too, especially if she or it's won over the loyalty of those fanatics so quickly. We don't know what information is available to them, and so we have to assume they have knowledge of anything and everything Dr. Rothery might know about our tactics and responses."

The captain nodded slowly in acknowledgement, brow furrowing as she thought hard. "They haven't gone near the testing labs… there's a chance the staves we were working on could be overcharged to provide an area stun, though they'd almost definitely burn out after that. You'd get one, maybe two shots at most from them, but if they're bunched up…"

"How long would it take you to make those modifications?" The general asked, drawing both of their attentions back to him.

"Maybe ten minutes with the help of whoever's still in the lab, sir," She replied close to instantly. "Between all of us, we've already identified the main regions corresponding with power draw, so all we'd have to do is reassemble them without the limiters in place."

"Colonel?"

O'Neill frowned but nodded. "The best time to get them would be when they're attempting to go through the gate; the ramp's a good bottleneck, and there's no way they can get out of formation fast enough after they pass through the gate if we launch it through after them. Would Dr. Rothery know about your ability to modify the staves?"

"No, sir, I would've been telling her about it over dinner, but…"

"Then that's an advantage we still have," Hammond noted, glad for the first sign of a plan they'd had since the situation had begun. "You have your mission."

The two saluted before turning to leave his office with all due haste, leaving Hammond behind to pray that this haphazard stunt would work out.

~0~0~

Daniel Jackson, meanwhile, was in a bit of a bind. He'd been on his way to deliver his reports on the translations efforts of the Abydonian language samples from both the pyramid and the city when the alarm had gone off, too far to go back to his offices or the archaeological / anthropological wing and too far to make the rest of the run to the general's office, especially since an emergency would mean that he was too busy to put up with a civilian huddling inside.

The problem was deftly solved when the first wave of soldiers rushing to report to their stations all but shoved him into the closest doorway, closing him in with what turned out to be the physics and engineering section based on the half-disassembled weapons all over the countertops. With a sigh he set down his folders on a clear part of the nearest table, pulling up his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose before he put them back and prepared for a long wait.

He didn't even have anyone to speak to to pass the time; it seemed that whoever worked in here had been out on break when the alarms had gone off, and were probably stuck in various labs around the base much like he was now. What they would've talked about, he wasn't sure, but it would've broken the silence.

He didn't have much time to wait, however; by the time he'd realized the footsteps running closer to the lab were coming for it instead of going past, the door was already being shoved open, Colonel O'Neill leading his squad in with a determined scowl in place.

"What the hell, Carter, I thought you said there'd be people here," He spoke, looking around the nearly empty room closely, as if he could find the missing scientists through determination.

"I didn't think they'd take an early break, sir," One of the others - Dr. Carter, wasn't it? - replied somewhat sheepishly, the woman stepping further into the room before glancing to him from the corner of her eye. "Dr. Jackson?"

"Uh, hi?" He replied, wincing slightly at the attention of all five people who'd joined him and mentally wishing he hadn't tempted fate by asking for company. "I sort of got shoved in here by one of the other soldiers, so…"

O'Neill snorted, turning back to Carter. "Right, just tell us how to put these together and we'll get it done."

"Do you see the small black rings set to the side of the staves?"

O'Neill and the other men stepped over to different tables. "Yeah?"

"Those are the control modules. They're what we're leaving out."

"Right, leave them alone," The colonel nodded, setting his own back down while looking over the rest of the staves.

"Um, can someone at least let me know what's going on out there?"

Dr. Carter glanced to him after telling the soldiers the next two steps of the makeshift reassembly process. "Sir?"

"Prisoners got loose, captured some noncombatants, and are going for the gate. We're going to keep them from leaving," O'Neill replied, focused on putting the pieces of the staff back into place. "Shit, did I do this wrong?"

"No sir, the wafer would have been keeping that steady at this point, just keep going and it'll be fine," Dr. Carter replied. "Also, sir?"

"Yeah, Carter?"

"Dr. Jackson can speak the Abydonian language, can't he?"

Danial would have been more offended at being referenced in the third person if he hadn't suddenly gotten thoughtful attention from the colonel for it. "I'm... fairly good with it at this point, though I'm still shaky on some of the grammar changes I've had to relearn from the natives."

O'Neill glanced back to his men and to Dr. Carter before looking back to the archaeologist. "Do you think you'd be able to tell those guards to stand down once we have them captured again?"

"Well, sure," He replied. "Whether they'd listen is something else entirely…"

"Don't worry, we've got that part covered," The colonel nodded to the staves, slotting the last pieces into place on Carter's direction. "Right, who's ready to knock these fanatics for a loop or three?"

Daniel wondered whether or not he was getting in over his head again even as he was led right back out of the room, trailing behind the group of soldiers and their modified staves. Then again, trouble seemed to be the one coming to him, not the other way around, so perhaps he was just unlucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one seems to be having a good day, do they? But I guess thats what happens when an alien parasite takes over one of your people and tries to make a break for it through your military base.
> 
> Question of the day is, which sg1 character is your favorite, and why? (Can be anyone from the series, not just the main cast.)


	34. Serpent's Curse: Deliverance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Matthew is annoyed and Rodney appreciates the smaller miracles in surviving for this long.

Three phone calls, two deaths, one hour, and no way for Matthew to get back to Colorado in time to help. If he hadn't been fraying around the edges waiting for whatever news he could get, he'd have been laughing at the incredible timing of Alfred's disappearance and the crisis at Stargate Command.

The Canadian personification groaned, running a hand down his face as he waited by the phone for any sort of update from General Hammond. While he was certain most of the States who hadn't missed their Personification vanishing (and dying) once were aware of his second disappearance in as many months, Virginia had been the one to tell him that Alfred had been at his house when he'd vanished from her senses, meaning it'd been Tony who'd taken him at exactly the wrong time.

Of all the times to wish he was America instead of Canada!

Unfortunately though, Cheyenne Mountain was nowhere near his border, so he'd had to fly back up to Ottawa in order to report to his boss and catch up on the paperwork that'd piled up and been only partially delegated to secretaries in the two and a half weeks he'd been away for the Abydos Contact Mission. Between the information on and from the personification of Abydos, the technology and materials that would be making their way north within half a year, and the work he had to do before the next World Meeting, he'd been swamped enough to not spare a second thought to what could go wrong.

Even now, though, he could hear Alfred laugh and tell him that there was no way either of them could have predicted things going south so quickly. The chances of a breakout happening were low as it was, and Alfred disappearing was… not quite rare, but unlikely to happen during anything critical. The odds of them occurring at the same time, with Matthew also unavailable, were so low that even General West might have given pause for a moment.

...nah, the Canadian thought with a snort, the man had probably not only predicted this could happen but was already preparing the first two of his contingencies for just such a situation. Paranoid and military-minded he might be, but it'd proven damned effective when it was needed most.

He could only hope that the SGC could pull through before it was implemented, because otherwise…

(He offered up a brief prayer, just on the off-chance it might help.)

~0~0~

He was dead he was dead he was so fucking dead it wasn't even funny anymore. Dr. McKay wasn't certain whether the gate failing to activate was in any way good for his long term health or not, but based on his luck today he was going to bet on the latter.

" _Where are you?"_ He couldn't help but wonder in a slowly growing panic, because it'd been nearly fifteen minutes since he'd seen a friendly human being and there was no way of knowing if they'd finally managed to throw together a plan that wasn't 'run at the crazy fanatics like idiots' yet. " _I'd like to not die today, thanks!"_

When Not-Rothery's voice growled behind him in that alien language he tensed, but her anger didn't seem to be directed at him yet, so he risked a glance around the room just in case there was a way out. Of course, there was nothing immediately available, and another shout had one of the guards grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him around roughly so their leader could get up in his face.

"Why did the chappa'ai not activate?"

"I don't know- auck!" He grit his teeth against the shake he'd been given for the effort. "It could have been any of a dozen things - the address might not exist, the other gate could be damaged or blocked, there might not be enough power, things like that!"

Rothery scowled, glancing to her guard before shallowly tossing her head up. The gesture apparently meant 'dump that scientist's ass on the ground', as that was what happened not a moment later.

"Dial us a world that does work then, Dr. McKay," The woman demanded, her use of his name mocking enough that if she weren't holding six not-so-metaphorical guns to his head, he'd snapped right back at her.

"Fine, fine, gimme a minute," He grumbled, pushing himself back to his feet and going back to the computer while furiously thinking. His only options if he didn't want to get killed in the next minute or two were Abydos and Heliopolis, neither of which were good for various reasons.

Heliopolis, while possessing nothing but friendlies, was mostly staffed by scientists who hadn't had reason to lift or carry a gun outside of training. The place was also structurally unsound, meaning that if any fighting went down, it could take out part or most of the ancient castle with it, more than likely killing everyone inside in the process.

Abydos, on the other hand, had only a small holding force in the gate chamber, the rest of those assigned to the planet taking part in the setup of the future outpost there. If Rothery (or whatever was pretending to be her) had access to unknown addresses, she'd face no challenges on the other side while she and her men turned around and dialed out to… wherever they'd originally been intending to go.

Whelp, only one would give the soldiers enough time to keep these fanatics from escaping known territory, and he was dead no matter what. He quickly stamped in the code to the planet where he'd really made his name within the SGC, hoping the guards wouldn't realize it wasn't the code to Abydos like they probably expected. As the last chevron locked and the wormhole formed, he held tightly to the desk and counted down to the shot that would knock him out and/or kill him.

Instead he was manhandled and dragged along with the group, stumbling as he was tossed forward towards the pool. He turned to complain, only to have a radio of all things shoved into his hands while Rothery held the other.

"You will go through and confirm through this device that the world on the other side is not harmful. If you resist, you will die."

" _Well, I'm gonna die anyways, aren't I?"_ He barely kept to himself, glancing to the stone-faced fanatics before stepping through to a confused group of soldiers and scientists.

He took a breath and told them quickly, "About fifteen seconds behind me is a group of escaped fanatics and their probably insane leader, so running might be a good option."

Luckily, they seemed to take it seriously, everyone ducking behind crates or running down the hall to alert the rest of those in the castle. Taking in a shaky breath, he brought the radio up to his mouth and said, "It's all good."

There's no reply, obviously, but a few seconds later the water ripples and the guards step out in pairs, Rothery right on their tail, smile quickly dipping into a scowl as the wormhole closed behind her. "This is not Abydos."

"I don't know the address to Abydos!" He lied, panic making it sound convincing enough to his ears. "But I know someone here does, so you can get them to do it!"

"You waste my time and patience, McKay," She snarled, and a guard grabbed him (why was this a thing?) and threw him to the wall, his entire body feeling like one large bruise as he gave up on attempting to move or even breathe for a moment.

Yeah, that was almost definitely something broken. Maybe two or three things. Hopefully not his spine, though he could still feel his legs and toes so he was probably fine on that front. Fuck his life today and in general - was it too much to ask to just be left alone with his projects?

Rothery snarled something to her guards in that other language, and heard the boots walk off in what he vaguely guessed were down the halls and to the edges of the room. If anyone tried to come through from Earth, there was no doubt these guards would be prepared for it and fire before anything could be thrown through. He could only hope that fact that he'd warned them soon enough to be prepared for the guards coming after them.

"Rodney!" A voice hissed to his right, and he almost tilted his head to look before it hastily added, "No, don't look this way."

Right, that would get Rothery and whatever guards could still see him to look towards the crates as well. He closed his eyes instead, taking a deep breath while trying to remember - ah, yes, the rather strict doctor Fraiser. Ninety percent of the tests he'd had to go through in order to see Heliopolis had been on her command, as well of eighty percent of those he'd gone through once he'd made it back to Earth.

Wait, why was she behind the crates?

"I need you to stay absolutely still," She told him as quietly as she could manage, taking advantage of the fact that Rothery was over by the dialing station and so too far away to hear her over the sound of the gas generator that powered the device.

"Why?" He asked back quietly, hissing it through his teeth to avoid moving his lips too much.

Instead of a reply, he got what sounded to be the soft scrape of plastic on plastic, right before one of the crates slammed down and open right next to him. His own screams were hidden within the shrieks of the dozen hellions who'd been inside it, the guards quickly bringing their staves up to deal with them even as they scrambled around the room looking for an escape or a victim.

The first blast of energy, less than a foot from Rodney's head, gave them that target, and he opened his eyes to appreciate the little fuckers going after someone other than him even as Dr. Fraiser crawled over to drag him to safety behind the crates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you were wondering where Matt was in all this. Needless to say, he's not too happy with Alfred, the universe, or himself right now.
> 
> Also I'm worried I don't have Rodney down quite right, because it's been ages since I watched SG1 or Atlantis so like, I don't have much of a feel for his character outside the wikis and whatnot. If I ever get around to a sequel to this fic, I'll probably do that just to be on the safe side, but for now... :Y


	35. Serpent's Curse: The Upper Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney and Janet get a break, while the building they're in doesn't.

Of all the things to happen to her since she'd wound up on her rotation between Earth and Heliopolis (and soon to be Abydos once they had the first round of shots prepared to try and stave off the worst of the first constant plagues so common in history - urgh, she was shuddering just thinking about it!), dealing with escaped fanatics and a friendly-turned-traitor was definitely nearing to top of the list of bullshit she had not signed up for.

Janet exhaled sharply as she focused on the task at hand - getting herself and Dr. McKay, along with whoever else was still here, out of immediate danger so whatever rescue team was coming could act without fear of civilian casualties. The hellions would only distract the aliens for a minute or two, and she didn't like the odds of trying to pull the same trick twice.

"How much longer until that back-up arrives?" She asked McKay, frowning when he winced at her light touch. If they got out of this alive, he was going to need a full check-up to see what had been damaged or broken - at the least, his breathing rhythm was off enough to suggest rib fracturing or breakage.

"I don't know," He hissed back, gaze flickering to the still-empty ring. "I was sort of occupied trying not to get killed by those freaks."

Janet swore under her breath, and not just because of the lack of information. "Can you move at all?"

"Yeah, sure, let's just make the walking bruise jossle his insides even more, that sounds like a brilliant plan, Dr. Fraiser."

"It's either that, or the guards capture both of us for siccing the hellions on them."

Dr. McKay looked like he wanted to protest, but swallowed it back, instead replying with, "Please tell me you've got a spot that's not far from here."

Her gaze slid around the room, looking for areas that blocked line of sight from the center, and felt more than thankful for the fact that the debris previously there had been cleared to make room for the supply crates, giving a direct line to the stairs up to an unused corridor with a few rooms they could huddle in.

The stairs might be a problem, but if the gate happened to activate, they might just be able to make it while the guards were distracted. Of course, if that didn't happen soon, the guards would investigate the falling crates, and in the process find them, even if she'd managed to move to a separate set of crates with a hiding spot away from the first stack.

"If we get up the stairs, there's a safe room we can hide in not too far from the gate - we'd still be able to send and receive radio signals."

Dr. McKay's brows shot up as he looked to the stairs, then back to her. "Are you crazy? They'll have almost half a minute to pick us off if we go for that!"

"Then you'd better hope your rescue team gets here fast," She replied, scowling. "And I don't see you coming up with better ideas to get us out of here alive."

"Give me a few minutes- fuck-" He leaned back against the wall, hand pressed to his side while poorly hiding his grit teeth. "Fine, but I'm going on record as saying this is a stupid plan."

He was only spared her reply when the sound of the gate booting up - a wonderfully welcome sound at this point - reached their ears, chevrons locking in one by one despite the lack of sound from the back-up generators that usually preceded a dial out from this side. She risked a peek out from their hiding spot, extremely thankful she'd waited as the guard perhaps ten feet from them was now facing away, allowing her to duck back to safety.

"Ready to go?"

Dr. McKay grimaced but nodded, slowly pushing himself away from the wall. She rose into a crouch, one hand resting against the box while she kept an ear out for what was about to come next-

The woosh of the wormhole being formed, along with the splash of blue light now dancing against the wall, had her ready to grab McKay's wrist and get moving, even if it meant risking further injury for him. However, no other sounds came asides from the quickly approaching boot steps of the other aliens, along with the shouted commands from the traitor.

A sharp bark came from the woman, and several clanks of metal on stone echoed from the center of the room. After nothing happened for a moment, another, less hasty command came, and the guards slowly started to move away from their spot, heading towards the center of the room. Janet risked another peek out, seeing none of them were focused on where they were, and looked back to McKay.

"We're safe; let's get goin-"

She leapt back at the sudden burst of light that blasted through the gateway, leaving the entire room shaking as it impacted and detonated, panicked shouts and metal clattering. Not wanting to risk the crates falling on them, she grabbed him and, despite his protests, all but booked it for the stairs, helping him up the broken portion and pushing him into the first side room in the hall.

"Fuck, woman, give a guy warning next time," He exhaled, slumping back against a large block of debris as he rubbed his wrist.

"You can complain once I'm sure this room won't collapse on us in the next couple of seconds," She shot back, looking up at the ceiling before deciding reluctantly that it didn't look like it was about to crumble, despite the minor shaking still going on. Whatever the scientists had been working on back on Earth, they'd definitely come through, although what damage they'd do in the process remained to be seen.

~0~0~

"Alright, you're up, Jackson," Jack declared, examining the damage they'd done through the MALP still parked in the corner of the entry room. It'd been left there as an easy way to patch radio through, which was going to prove to be useful in the upcoming negotiations. "They're down four guards, and two of the others are still missing, but we can't wait for them to get back with hostages."

The anthropologist had winced at seeing the damage from the 'improved' staves, but nodded and pressed his button to the transmit button. Only a few of the words were recognizable, those being his name and that of the retitled Stargate Command, but he knew the general gist to be, "You're going to put down your guns and raise your hands, and maybe we won't send another blast through and take out the rest of you."

He'd made very certain Jackson knew what he wanted said, even if some of the words might not translate to a several thousand year old language.

Rothery waved a hand at one of the guards, who had apparently been holding one of the two portable radio headsets she'd stolen. "My guards will be back with hostages - once they arrive, you will not dare risk them with your weapons."

Great, he hated enemies who kept thinking while panicking. Leaning over, he replied, "You assume that's a risk we're not willing to take. I've got two guys on standby ready to blast you and your men the second you pull anything, so it's in your best interest to play along."

The fact that they only had five shots left went unsaid, as they didn't want the guards to think they could outwait them. Not to mention that with how much shaking had occurred after just one blast, he didn't want to risk another unless he had to. Collapsing the entire building on top of all of those civilians was not on his or General Hammond's agenda today, no matter that it would deal with the hostiles effectively.

There was a brief wait for a reply, and he could only guess at what the curse she spat at him meant, but she gestured again, her guards reluctantly setting their staves down and stepping back, gazes still focused on the gate. Jack nodded to Carter, who left the doorway to instruct the frontline to head in and secure the gateway for them.

"Jackson, stay behind me, and for the love of God, keep your gun out in case things get nasty," Jack told the man, scowling when the scientist started to protest.

"I need to at least try to appear friendly if I want them to listen to me!"

"Maybe under different circumstances, I'd agree," He replied, turning his full military gaze on the man. "But these guys have taken civilian hostages, and one of them is a traitor to the military and the US as a whole. Your safety is more important than their comfort at this point - you're going to be their first target if things go south."

"...yes, sir," Jackson replied, for now suitably cowed into listening.

As long as it lasted for the rest of the mission, Jack would be more than happy to ignore the brief insubordination from a man who he already knew was not a fan of violence. Heck, it was only because he could speak Abydonian that he was even being allowed along!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it took a bit longer to get back into writing this than I thought, and I think my character voices might be a bit rusty. Thank god there's only ten or so more chapters after this, or I'd be stressing over this even more than I already am. I have no idea when or if I'm going to get to a sequel of this fic, so don't hold you breath for it, especially since the next few months are gonna focus on other projects I've been meaning to get to.


	36. Serpent's Curse: Silver Tongue, Iron Dagger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam, Jack, and Daniel finally learn what they're up against, and Alexander gets some screen time again.

Apepmose growled as the first of the humans entered the gate, holding staff weapons like they were the equal of Jaffa! Hah! Too much freedom had clearly gotten to their heads, and would have to be stomped out brutally once she got out of here and was able to claim control of the world properly.

(The part of her host's mind that made it clear that such stomping would not come easily was brushed aside, even as the price of another jab of pain from maintaining control.)

Still, she decided as the last of the small 'rescue team' came through, the gate rippling closed behind them, not all was lost. The fools hadn't actually come close to grab the staves of her Jaffa yet, and the other two were on their way back after a near-quiet command through the suits' communications systems with as many hostages as they could herd before them. While she wasn't certain about O'Neill, her host knew Samantha to be soft at heart, and she'd hesitate long enough for her and her guards to gain the upper hand again.

Not to mention that other scientist - Jackson - would be such a wonderful little pet to break after the fact. He'd had the gall to encourage a serviceable group of slaves to revolt, and then succeed - an insult that deserved nothing but the worst she could think of. O'Neill, though also as guilty, was too dangerous by far to be allowed to live, not after having killed Ra.

"Doctor Rothery, set down the gun at your side, kick it away, and put your hands up. Any funny movements and my men blast you," O'Neill ordered, and she did so, glad that the dialing pedestal hid the zat'nik'tel she'd liberated from the same closet they'd hidden the armor of her guards in. When they lowered their guard, she'd be able to take out their leader, leaving them scrambling for someone to command them while her guards took advantage and retrieved their weapons.

"Why did you do this, Teryl?" Carter stepped forward, unfortunately not lowering her staff despite the delicious amount of agony she must be feeling now. "What could they possibly give you to make you turn against everyone?"

Apepmose forced her eyes to widen, faking vulnerability as her ancestor's memories told her to. "You don't understand, I've seen the truth, all of it - the goa'uld will come, in huge warships, and kill us all, unless someone goes and pleads mercy. Their weapons- it's impossible to describe - they might as well be gods for all the chance we stand against them all!"

She stepped forward, arms out as she pleaded. "Please, Sam, you know I'm only trying to protect as many people as I can. I don't want everyone to die uselessly, not when we could survive for another year. You trust me, right?"

And for a moment, Carter looked tempted, even lowering her weapon as she moved closer, almost within knockout range. "Teryl, I don't…"

"Sam…" Apepmose replied, soft, vulnerable, counting down the time until she could grab the woman and make her into a hostage-

Only to reel back as pain blossomed from her jaw, a hand instinctively coming up to cradle it even as she stared at the now incredibly furious human. "Wha-"

"My friend," She bit out, fire in her eyes where before they'd been watery and weak, "Would never give up without a fight like this - she is not a coward, and not a traitor, and the fact that you have the gall to- to make a mockery of her like this-"

The staff rose again, and Apepmose was convinced the woman would actually try and kill her in the next few seconds. Such was her surprise that, for a brief minute, her control slipped, but that was all her host needed, having bided its time to shove her into the darkness, even if her control demanded she remain somewhat aware of the waking world.

"Sam, it's - it's in my head, I can't-" The host blubbered, tears falling uselessly, as if it'd get her any more mercy. "It caught me when I was examining the bodies - it shoves me down, and it's dark and horrid and please God you have to kill me before it gets away, or it'll bring all of its kind on us, and we really can't survive, not without a miracle!"

"Teryl-" Carter choked, rushing forward to grab the host only to pause as it recoiled.

"No, don't - I can't tell when it'll be back in control, and it might use me against you again. Just- tell my family I love them, and that my gift for my cousin's birthday is under my bunk, yeah?"

"Okay- okay," Carter replied softly, already stepping back and lifting her weapon. At the same time, the goa'uld regained control of the body, snarling internally as she shoved the mind where it belonged, doing her best at the same time to keep up the pretense of internal conflict. One of her guards had frowned more tightly, gaze flickering to the halls once, and she knew that her moment was nearly here.

"It's already fighting- it hurts so bad-" Apepmose cried, hiding her face to hide the lack of tears now. "Please, before it's too late!"

"Sir?" She could hear Carter asked, hesitance in her voice.

"If that really is her, Carter, then it's probably for the best. If anything she said there was the truth, Command will have to know as soon as possible."

"Ahh!" She let herself scream, straightening as if in pain. "Mol kek!"

The guards in the halls, who had been waiting for the command, opened fire, taking out Carter and - unfortunately - the man next to O'Neill, in exchange for two blasts of light taking out the newcomers and their prisoners, as well as causing the place to shake. She scrambled for her zat'nik'tel at the same time her other guards grabbed for their weapons and started firing, sending a blast towards O'Neill only to have it again dodged. Snarling, she ducked behind cover and waited for the cooldown to end, only looking out long enough to get in another shot.

This time, she was pleased to see the colonel get hit, falling over in a stun. The other men, unfortunately, did not panic, instead using another shot of their staff to blast away the pedestal and force her from hiding, at the same time saving her from a chunk of ceiling that has almost crushed her leg.

Then there was a gunshot, and she stumbled, her shoulder blossoming in pain. Turning back, she saw that Jackson, who she'd dismissed as incapable of combat, was staring at her wide eyed from behind her guard, having apparently been aiming for him since he'd been attempting to capture the scientist as a bargaining tool.

The shock of everyone in the room gave her a chance to aim a shot at him in revenge, but the shaking of her arm caused her to miss. She swore, trying to focus on healing the wound even as she dodged a fifth blast. Her other two guards had now been taken out, the humans using the staffs as crude clubs to smash into the vulnerable joints before using their guns to injure them so they couldn't fight back.

The shaking of the building increased, and with another snarl, she ran for the stairs, hoping to be able to make a break of it. Her host's mind had brought up plans for if Heliopolis destabilized, which involved prioritizing the safety of the personnel, and the place was certainly not going to stand up much longer. After they were gone and the place was safe, she could come back and look around at her leisure before using the gate to make her escape from here.

~0~0~

Alexander swore as the possessed woman ran off, the group being down to just himself and Reilley conscious. Part of him wanted to chase after her, but he knew that his more immediate job was getting all the unconscious civilians who had been herded in front of the guards through the gate ASAP.

"I'll dial the gate, you get the people out of the way of the blast zone," He told his friend instead, who nodded and grabbed the colonel and Ferretti and started pulling them to the side. At the same time, he lept over a large chunk of ceiling and scrambled for the makeshift dialing device, which had thankfully not been damaged when the staff shots had been lobbed in the general direction.

It was only the work of a few seconds - most personnel had both workable addresses and their counterparts memorized in case of evacuation or emergency contact. He slapped a hand to his radio, again amazed he was in such a similar scenario even as he reported in, "Dr. Rothery has escaped into Heliopolis- place is starting to fall apart, almost everyone's unconscious, send medical teams to the gate room to grab people as we send them through."

"Private Danson, this is Command," General Hammond's voice replied through the radio. "Is the place stable enough to handle someone dialing in?"

"I don't know, sir, the place is already falling apart. But having more hands would probably help, along with making sure we have everyone here."

"Then close off the connection from your end, and we'll dial in with a medic team. Is Dr. McKay with the rest of the civilians?"

The Canadian cast a quick count over the bodies, frowning when he couldn't match the face he recalled with anyone there. "No, sir, he might have gotten away in the confusion. If he's close, he'll probably come back-"

There was a shout from the stairway where he'd seen Rothery run, causing him to turn and grit his teeth. "I think she might have found someone, sir!"

"Wait for us to arrive before you go, understand?" The general commanded, and he was about to protest until he realized the man hadn't said he couldn't go after they'd started coming through.

"Yessir. I'm signing off now."

"Good luck, son."

The radio went silent, and the gate, with nothing going through it, immediately shut itself down. He ran back over to Reilley, who hadn't heard much over the next bout of shaking from the building. Thankfully, it was dying down, but he could only imagine what would happen with two more gate activations in short succession.

"General Hammond is sending medics through to help, and I'll be going after Rothery as soon as they arrive. Since I've got the last shot-"

"I'll be coming with you," Reilley interrupted. "You need someone watching your back just in case she - or it, whatever - tries something, and I heard that yell too. If nothing else, dragging her and Dr. McKay back is going to be a two-person job."

Alex only thought for a second before agreeing. It would be dangerous enough, now that they knew she had some smaller stun weapon at hand, but she couldn't get them both, which meant one of them would at least be able to make the shot in time. It even sounded close enough that the medics would be able to find them and help retrieve everyone there if necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I... might have cut this story down by several chapters accidentally? Because stuff I thought would take longer sort of didn't, and characters did not react as I expected when I started writing, and so yeah. Next chapter is gonna wrap up this arc and then we're hopping back to Alfred (finally) to see what he and Tony have been doing.
> 
> Also apologies for not updating Sunday, was busy over the weekend so had no time to write.


	37. Serpent's Curse: Laid To Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Daniel discuss the future and lament the past.

"Dr. Carter?"

Sam jumped in her seat, having been lost in thought while her fingers rubbed holes in the curled ribbon of her friend's final gift. "Yes, Dr. Jackson?"

The man offered a sympathetic smile, food tray at hand. "Do you mind if I join you? Everywhere else is sort of full right now."

The lie was fairly obvious after a fast glance around the cafeteria, more than half the tables empty at this point in the afternoon, but she offered her own halfhearted smile and replied, "Sure, go ahead."

Though news of what exactly had happened to the late Teryl Rothery was mostly being kept quiet until high command had some idea of how to deal with the newly discovered threat to their operations and operatives, enough people had known she was at least friendly with the woman, offering condolences that, for all their sincerity, only made the ache worse. And sure, Sam had lost friends before in combat situations, but none had involved such a horrific ending before.

At least the others had died as themselves.

Glancing back up from her barely touched meal, Sam noticed that Dr. Jackson was twisting his lips, torn about whether to speak up or remain quiet. Any moment now, he'd offer the same awkward apology, and she'd fake another smile and accept it as if it'd make up for not being able to save her friend in time-

"I'm sorry about shooting your friend."

...well that hadn't been quite what she'd been expecting from him. Sam looked back up from her tray, brow raised in surprise as he ducked his head. "Were you aiming for her specifically?"

"Well, no, but-" He stammered, looking back up to her. "I was trying to just get the guard to move, and I can't help but wonder if she might have been able to dodge the rubble if she hadn't been dealing with the shock."

Sam had wondered that as well- Private Danson's report on his chase after her, concluding in her death from falling rubble caving in half her head and the last minute scramble for the gate with Doctors Fraiser and McKay on his heels. The fact that they'd even brought the body back at all with the time crunch had been unexpected by command after the news of the imminent collapse had gone through the gate. But as much as a small, bitter part of her was tempted to blame Jackson for it, she knew he'd just been trying to defend himself with only the mandatory self-defense courses he'd gone through with the rest of the non-military scientists under his belt.

"It's not your fault," She offered instead. "If anything, I should have realized something was wrong with her earlier, before she'd broken out the guards and nearly killed everyone in Heliopolis."

Maybe if she'd actually paid attention, they wouldn't have lost such a valuable off-world base, its massive alien computer, and the five scientists who hadn't been found by the guards and thus hadn't been able to reach the gate in time to escape.

"But didn't your report say she was acting perfectly normal?" Dr. Jackson asked, now looking at her again with a frown. "If that- thing in her was able to read her memories, then there would be no way to tell before she started acting out of character, which didn't happen until afterwards."

Sam huffed out a laugh, remembering how the colonel had informed her that sadly, he couldn't tell her anything about the snake-like parasite that had woven part of its nervous system throughout her brain like a fungus, body wrapped around her brain stem until they'd finally managed to remove it for autopsy. Command's orders, of course. She barely knew the man, but she'd found herself smiling thinly even as she'd acknowledged the order, because it'd been far more than she'd been expecting to get for a long while, if ever.

"I still could have used my staff sooner, knocked her out before the place started falling to pieces."

Dr. Jackson had no counter to that, so he remained quiet for a moment before shifting the topic slightly, lowering his voice in the process. "I'm going to request a transfer out to Abydos soon."

Sam's brow rose again. "Oh?"

"Well, I'm still the best of the archaeologists at speaking the local language, and I'm hoping that I might be able to see if the locals know anything about how to deal with the possession."

Both her brows were raised now, because she had never really put thought to the fact that the humans there had been dealing with similar beings for who knew how many generations at this point. Then again, she hadn't been on the mission there, so she guessed she could forgive herself for not thinking of it first. "Are you sure they'll have anything?"

"No, but it's the best shot we have unless we find something in the parts of the database we managed to download," Dr. Jackson admitted. "I'm hoping either the chief or the oracle will have the information, but they might also have something in those catacombs of theirs if nothing else."

"If you do find anything, Command'll be tripping over themselves to give you a medal for services to the country," A new voice joined them, startling them both in their seats.

"Colonel!" Sam resisted the urge to bite her lip, hoping their discussion hadn't been leaning towards classified territory.

The older man snorted, claiming a seat next to hers without asking and taking a bite out of his apple. "Good tip for private conversations - don't lower your voice, it makes you more suspicious."

Jackson rubbed at his cheek in embarrassment. "I only really just thought of it while I was talking to Dr. Carter - I would have brought it up in my transfer request."

"I'm not angry at you, Jackson - heck, General Hammond will probably be glad to have something to report to General West and the President about damage control next week. Not to mention that we'll need someone in the city to keep fostering the nice fuzzy feeling the people have towards us right now, and for some reason they seem to like you best."

Jackson flushed more. "Well, I mean, they've just been so welcoming, and I've been doing my best to learn about them so I don't insult anyone while my team is learning more about them and their history."

The colonel grinned. "Exactly my point. You're already our unofficial ambassador to them, and since you know so much about them already, it probably won't even take you long to reach official ambassador status."

The archaeologist choked on his food. "I'm- no, that's not exactly the best at dealing with- there have to be more qualified people to-"

"Relax, it'll only be for a few years at most, until you can train someone more politically savvy with enough of the language and culture to take over."

Jackson looked torn between dismay and contemplation, glancing back to his meal, and O'Neill turned to her thoughtfully.

"And what're you planning on doing next?"

"Me, sir?" Sam frowned thoughtfully. "Well, after the team I'm with finishes taking apart the surviving staves and figures out how they work to a replicable point, I'm probably going to be going back to working out the dialing systems - Dr. McKay claims to have some ideas of additional feedback systems in the ring we can access with our current setup, and Command apparently liked them enough to have them tested while we're still searching for other accessible worlds."

"Sounds fun," the Colonel replied. "Anything in particular you think might work?"

"...well, there's a good chance we might be able to access the internal diagnostics, which would give us an idea of conditions around the other gate without having to send a MALP through first. It might be a long while before we find that system, though - even with the information on the ring we got from Heliopolis, it'll be years before we have the computational and engine power to run even a fraction of the full capabilities of the system."

"Well, at least you'll always be busy, right?"

Sam found herself smiling despite herself - it was true that the ring would be the world of more than just her lifetime, and that it wouldn't be that bad a way to make her name. Still, there were other scientists (like Dr. McKay) who would more than likely be able to take over the project eventually, which would give her a chance to explore all the other new developments that would be coming along over the following months and years.

Not to mention the fact that, one day, she really hoped to be on one of the teams sent in to explore a newly-rediscovered world. Now that would be the adventure of a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than I hoped, and maybe not the best, but right now I've fallen into a creative slump and really just want to get this fic at least done. There's only a handful of chapters left, taking us back to Alfred and what he's been up to, as well as a few spoilery things that, should I ever get around to the sequel, will play a lot into things. Maybe. Hopefully.


	38. Pilot Arc: Civility In War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred and Tony have a frank discussion on the current political mess approaching the galactic playing field.

_Dark dark pain trapped someone help please Sam anyone_

_Light motion running its distracted have to fight back no no dark dark so cold have to get back_

_No no not more move move move MOVE rubble have to run have to stop-_

Alfred jolted awake, fingers digging into the small cot of the ship and leaving furrows in the mattress he or Tony would have to fix later. With a flight estimated at several hours, he'd been told to get some rest since the upcoming meeting would, in his words, 'take a long while and require all your wits about you'.

When he'd finally regathered himself from the surprise abduction and demanded who they were going to meet, Tony had just replied with a simple, "The Council", like that had been all the information he'd required. Which, to be fair, was at least something of an answer, having once asked who was in charge of decision making for his race, but he really didn't know much else about them, not even their names.

With a groan, the Nation pushed himself up into a seated position, rubbing at his eyes to get the sleep out while patting around the nightstand for his glasses. It hadn't exactly been restful - dreaming about an ongoing crisis tended not to be - but he would work with it until whatever new mess he'd gotten himself caught up in was cleared up so he could get home and investigate.

On instinct he reached out to home, to feel his people and reassure himself that they were okay, but the long distance and the speed at which they were travelling even now distorted his senses, giving him little else but the knowledge that they and his States were all alive. As the crisis he'd dreamed about hadn't felt widespread enough, he for now would have to assume it was contained for the moment, and possibly even be dealt with by the time he touched back down.

(He only hoped people wouldn't be too angry with him for being missing, but it wasn't like he'd had a choice in the matter.)

As if summoned by the brief flare of irritation in his direction - or more likely whatever monitoring systems were online right now - the doorway opened to Tony's signature, looking somewhat less frantic than he had a few hours ago. "I've managed to get a message through to the council - they should be convening within a few of your hours, which should provide us enough time to put together a report."

"Okay, great," The American grumbled. "You still haven't explained why exactly it's such a big deal I killed this Ra dude."

The alien hesitated, fingers twitching in the way that Alfred had long associated with an extremely careful consideration of words. "Ra is- I suppose was- the Supreme System Lord of the goa'uld over the past few thousand years. He commanded all the lower System Lords, and through them large swathes of the Milky Way galaxy. It was he the Asgard once fought with in respect to our lost allies, and he who signed the non-aggression treaty between us at the end of the war.

"You must understand, their race is power hungry, and he more so than the rest. At the same time, however, his own ambitions kept the others checked, focusing them on each other instead of threatening his own reign, and thus maintaining the balance of power in the galaxy for the past eight thousand years."

"Oh, so like the old monarchies in Europe?" Alfred asked, straightening in his seat with a frown.

"I suppose. However, with Ra dead, there is a power vacuum in place. He had no desire to pass on his power, and with how long-lived his species can be thanks to their technology, no need to establish a line of inheritance."

The American caught on quick. "So they're going to start fighting each other for the throne once they realize he's gone. But isn't that good - they'll be too busy to worry about us."

"It would be, if not for the fact that they'll be scrambling to take over his former worlds, and then expand to yet more in an arms race for resources and workers. And, unlike Ra, none of them are directly bound to the treaty unless the Asgard directly confront them or one emerges victorious, meaning that worlds formerly protected might soon be in grave danger."

Alfred paled, straightening up entirely. "Can't you guys just step in and like, keep them contained or something?"

"We are not fond of combat, and the council must unanimously agree to such a move before we could do anything. The only way I could see such a motion pass is if the goa'uld started destroying the worlds in question - even if the people there are doomed to slavery, we cannot risk the goa'uld returning to their former scorched earth tactics and making our efforts futile."

The American had been set to protest the lack of helpfulness until those words, and instead leaned back, unable to believe there were such vile beings in the galaxy that would go so far just to keep their control. "So you just have to let all those humans and whatever other species are out there become slaves to these guys? You can't even evacuate them or something?"

"Would the people of Earth appreciate being told they have to abandon their homeworld, even for their own safety?"

Alfred grimaced and wrapped arms around himself, knowing he and his people would bleed well before they chose to give up and run. And, he knew, many other Nations with any sort of combat capability would want to do the same, no matter how futile, just on the off chance it worked.

"Don't think we are completely heartless, Alfred - we long figured that something might upset the balance of the goa'uld, or else encourage them to test their boundaries. The defensive systems we have in place on many worlds will prevent any sort of invasion through the stargate, and Earth itself will not be approached unless proof of your incursions reaches their ears, which is unlikely to happen unless you happen to dial onto one of their worlds."

The blond exhaled, some of the tension in his stomach loosening at that. "That's - that's good. I'm sorry for-"

Tony moved forward to rest a hand on his friend's. "Do not apologize - I should have been there when you started testing the gate, and warned you of the dangers so you could decide what to do. I will more than likely be in trouble with the council for negligence, but that is not your concern either."

While Alfred was rather certain it was his concern, Tony being his friend, he allowed the subject to slide in favor of more important matters. "What can you tell me of the rest of the goa'uld in power?"

The Asgard frowned at him in question.

"I started off a galaxy-wide civil war - if there's any chance my people and I can help stop it or at least start working to save as many innocents as possible from it, I'm going to do it. It's the only thing I can really do to make up for this sort of fuck-up, even if I didn't know about it at the time, and if I'm gonna get other Nations on board with this, I'll have to be able to line out as much of the current politics as I can."

"Alfred, it would be dangerous to get too many people involved-"

"And it'd be more dangerous to leave most of the planet ignorant to the fact that there might be a war heading our way!" The American snapped. "Depending on what happens, Matt and I will have to accelerate the declassification of the Stargate to other countries, convince our bosses that it's in our best interests to get people involved before they hear about how much the military fucked up, and get ourselves prepared for a possible invasion that might or might not even come depending on our luck and how far we are from goa'uld territory."

The Asgardian looked tired then, all of the years of his life on his small frame, and Alfred knew he'd struck home with his concerns.

"I do not know how much I'll be able to get through before the Council convenes, so I will have to gloss over some smaller details right now."

"It's fine, just let me have the full reports once we get back to Earth, alright?"

"That will be acceptable."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should be only two or three chapters after this, I think? It's not the cleanest of endings I guess, but it'll clear up a few headcanons I've had since about midway through the fic, provide setup for a sequel, and also get in some last stuff with the Hetalia side of things since I sort of neglected that for the last arc. Whoops.


	39. Pilot Arc: The High Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alfred bluffs... big time.

"You can't do that!"

The High Council, which Alfred was rapidly losing patience with at this point, remained unphased by his outburst. To his side, Tony remained totally silent, apparently fully willing to accept the punishment being put upon him.

"The fact remains that Torny-"

"Was busy on some secret mission for you guys and so couldn't have known about the program! Blaming him for it would be completely stupid!"

The Chief Archon leaned over his seat, frowning down at the human challenging their decision. "That is not the issue, although it signifies the failure of his duties over a longer term than expected. What do you know of the Protected Planets Treaty?"

Alfred only paused for a moment to recall everything he'd been told in the recent crash course lesson before speaking up again. "Basically you guys and the goa'uld were at war for a few years, you guys were winning before the goa'uld started burning planets to keep them away from you, and you agreed to leave their territories alone as long as they stayed away from the planets under your control."

"That was the basic outline of it, yes," The Asgardian next to him replied. "But the goa'uld were wary of us, and thought we might use our worlds to build up armies to invade them, since that would technically not break the treaty due to us not being directly involved in combat."

A third spoke up, "So we agreed that, in addition to staying away from their territory, we would also avoid any sort of contact with any of the species under our protection while preventing them from reaching a technological level that could threaten the goa'uld."

"Prevent them from…" Alfred's mouth went dry, trying to unjar his mind from the idea of deliberately suppressing the natural development of civilizations and failing miserably. "Why would you agree to that?"

"It was our only choice," The Chief Archon gave out a sigh. "We could not tie up a large amount of our number just to keep the goa'uld in check, and it was the only way we could get them to agree to hold back from firebombing unprotected worlds the moment we turned our focus elsewhere. We conceded that, should any of those under our care find out, they would not be pleased, but we would rather take on the displeasure and hatred of a thousand worlds than see them dead because one made the mistake of posing a threat to the system lords."

What Alfred hated most was that he could understand, in a twisted sort of way, that is was the best of some rather shitty options. It wasn't one he was sure he'd be able to make, either, because there were humans out there being subjected to generations of inescapable slavery with no way out, and the idea of abandoning them to protect them left his gut roiling and bile on his tongue.

"And we fucked it up by discovering the gate, activating it, and proceeding to kill one of the guys keeping everything in check. Thereby making us a bit of a threat."

"In a way, you're lucky you got away with what you did," The Chief Archon continued. "They will not be able to pinpoint exactly who dealt the final blow to Ra, and so the Treaty is still active for the moment. So long as the gate and any related information is removed from the planet-"

"No," Alfred stared up at the council with grit teeth. "That's not an option. Try again."

"You have no right to-"

"Your own treaty says you can't actually do anything about the fact that we have a Stargate program. Not only are two countries fully backing it already, with government involvement all the way up, but more are being brought in so as to expand operations as we get in contact with more worlds."

The American put on a smirk he wasn't feeling as he continued. "By removing the gate, you don't solve the problem of all the data from Heliopolis - your own meeting place - that has already been copied and recopied and distributed across the continent. Even if you could scrub all the data from every server, you'd still have to track down all the hard copies made, and then all the papers that are based off of those copies, and the papers based off of those.

"At that point, you'd then have to deal with all the scientists and government workers who would at that point be alerted to something attacking and deliberately censoring the information they spent months collecting and studying, who probably have between them most of the information memorized and capable of putting it back down on paper the moment you guys give up and leave. And I figure, as advanced as you guys are, you can't exactly read minds to figure out who knows what, so you'd probably have to start kidnapping and brainwashing every last American and Canadian-"

"You would claim-"

"I know Tony has the technology to alter memories," Alfred cut back into the council's protests. "He's used it, with my permission, to keep his presence on Earth secret, because as my friend I don't want to see him get hurt or kidnapped by some crazies looking to get at his DNA or tech or whatever else they'd try to bargain for. Hell, I've stood up to my own bosses when they tried to demand information or equipment in exchange for his ongoing residence, which believe you me, does not make my job easier when they don't like or trust me.

"All I'm saying is, the cat's already out of the bag. Unless you guys took extreme measures, there's no way you'll ever be able to make us degrade enough to stop being a threat to the goa'uld, and I can't imagine that'll solve the issue once those guys finally figure out it wasn't one of them that killed the head honcho. At that point, you guys are going to have another war on your hand, whether you want it or not, unless something happens to keep their focus on each other."

The Council remained silent for a long while, before one of the Asgard who hadn't spoken until then stood. "You have an alternative idea."

"My people - almost all modernized countries, really - have branches of our military specializing in espionage and under the table missions. We aren't up to the task of infiltrating goa'uld worlds, but with more time to explore through the gate and collect information, we could build up a smokescreen that would let us operate safely enough to avoid directly violating your treaty."

"You would risk the safety of thousands of worlds on this plan?"

"It's the only way Earth will stand a chance of surviving on its own," Alfred replied. "Unless you guys have a better idea, in which case I'm all ears."

The Chief Archon lifted a hand, silencing the protests of two of the council. "We will… deliberate on your words, and give you our answer shortly."

WIth that, the holographic images of the council faded away, leaving just a tense American and a slumped Asgardian in the small holochamber.

"Alfred…"

"Tony, don't," Alfred exhaled slowly, closing his eyes as he slowly allowed himself to relax from his near-military stance. "I'm not angry with you for lying about that part of your mission - hell knows I'd avoid that conversation as long as I could if I were in your shoes - but for the love of god, if I have to bluff a bunch of super-advanced aliens again for your sake, I'm taking away your coffee privileges for a month at least."

Tony couldn't help but snort at the underwhelming threat, dissolving some of the tension in the room. "I was going to say thank you for defending me."

The blond stared at his friend for a moment before sighing and lightly smacking him in the shoulder. "Dude, that's what friends are for."

The alien just offered a smile in reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, I struggled over this scene for a while, because while I wanted to provide some more development on the Treaty and stuff, I didn't wanna just write a bunch of infodumping, and absolutely nothing was working for a while. This still isn't perfect, but to be honest, I need a break from writing my more serious works, and having this done is more important than it being perfect.
> 
> There's stuff I want to cover in the eventual sequel that provides better tie-ins for my reasoning for crossing over Hetalia besides 'for the sake of it'. Some of it involves the nature of Nations, and some imvolves the reason the Alliance of Four broke up as it did. Some of it involves how I might handle Atlantis differently than the series did. And a lot of it will, I think, just simply allow me to explore the politics of this mess without having to come up with a bunch of OCs or looking up specific politicians.


	40. Pilot Arc: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred and Matthew lament the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end.

Matthew slowly set his cup down, not saying anything to his brother as he went over everything he'd just been told about the latter's sudden kidnapping.

The first instinct he had to suppress was anger over, however inadvertently, being dragged into yet another war started by the American. He understood that there had honestly been no way to avoid it short of never having found the gate in the first place, but he still ached from the last battles he'd been in, and he wasn't quite in the mood for forgiveness at the moment.

The second was a deep, exasperating disbelief that the other had - somehow - successfully bluffed an alien species into believing that allowing the program the two of them had poured years and billions of dollars into to continue would - somehow - prevent a galaxy-spanning civil war to grow into a full out scorched earth conflict. A part of him was convinced that they hadn't fully bought it, but were just looking for an excuse to absolve themselves of guilt refused to leave it alone, and from the matter-of-fact, almost flat way he'd gone over it, he wouldn't have been surprised to find out Alfred was thinking along similar lines.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," The Canadian finally sighed, picking up his mug again to finish off the last of his tea. "How angry do you think the others will be with us?"

"With you? Probably a bit, since you were part of a conspiracy to hoard away alien knowledge and technology. With me?" The American whistled before donning a wry grin. "They'll already have a line-up for who gets to kick me in the nuts first."

"Alfred…"

"They'll see an American base with American personnel and blame me, even if you were just as much a part of it in the end. Honestly, I'd rather keep them all angry with me so they'll negotiate with you fairly, 'cause maybe that way we'll get people on board without another world war starting." The American shrugged and tilted his mug back until it was drained. "Besides, as mad as they'll be, they'll at least get why we did what we did. Imagine how mad the public will be once they find out what we've been up to."

"So you're still pushing for that, then?" Matthew asked.

"I'm thinking we might need to come out with a public front to cover for our covert ops, when it comes down to it," Alfred corrected. "I'd rather hold off on details until we have the other governments on board to figure out an official reveal."

The Canadian nodded in understanding, silence settling in the living room for several minutes as they both lost themselves in the troubles of the near and distant future.

"...Matt, I'm doing the right thing, right?" Alfred finally asked quietly, staring firmly into his empty mug.

Matthew looked up to his brother, waiting until the southern Nation finally gathered the nerves to look him in the eye before replying. "Off the record, I think you are."

The American grinned weakly, holding up his mug to the other. "To interesting times."

His brother snorted, but tapped his own mug against the other. "Interesting times, indeed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a short, crappy epilogue because I gave up and it's way too late for me to be writing.
> 
> When I started this project, I had a very different idea of where things would go and how characters would act than I do now. I think it's mostly for the better, tempered by time and expansion of headcanons as it is, but it also cuts into my motivation as I force myself to recognize just how LARGE a project this really is.
> 
> There's a lot of complaints about the later parts of the series – and the spinoffs in general – that I've seen, and a lot of them I can understand on some level. So, I decided that, as I was already making this an AU by simple fact of the existence of Nations, I'd go all out and do my best to try and build a series that focuses less on humans getting hold of lots of advanced technology (much as it tickles my fancy) and focus more on humanity scrambling for scraps and fully aware of a timer and a guillotine hanging over their heads.
> 
> I can't pretend that I'm the best person to be attempting such a project, but I'm also aware that I'm the ONLY person attempting it, which makes me both the best and worst simultaneously. Talk about a lot of pressure, huh? The sequel won't be coming up for a while, as college is starting soon, I still need to finish Mirror, and I still need to at least give myself an outline of early events to build off of. I need to expand on my concepts for the Great Four, expand on the goa'uld and other hostile entities of the Milky Way and beyond, and expand more on what friendly or neutral powers are out there.
> 
> Needless to say, I'm probably going to need some help for that. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to find it.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this work, even as mediocre as it ultimately is.


End file.
